


Modern Problems

by CommaSplice



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drabble, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Green Plaid Shirt, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 32,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1313767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommaSplice/pseuds/CommaSplice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in modern Westeros - unrelated short fics and drabbles</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Modern Problems - Rhaegar, Elia, Rhaella, Aerys

* * *

Rhaegar felt the start of a migraine headache coming on the minute Elia silently handed him the stack of messages from the home health aides. “I’ll deal with it,” he promised her.

“He’s not living with us.”

“Elia—”

She held up a hand. “No. This is not negotiable. I put up with the rest of your family—”

Rhaegar tried again, “Sweetling—”

“No. We have too much going on here at home with Viserys ranting about ‘waking the dragon’ and your sister running up credit card bills for every dress boutique in town. I swear there is not a blue garment she does not own. We have the kids and now we have your girlfriend and Jon too.”

“You said you were willing to try polyamory.”

Elia rolled her eyes. “Rhaegar, I am. I am simply telling you that I am at the limit of what I am willing to endure. If you bring your father here to live, I am packing up Rhaenys and Aegon and we’ll go to live with Oberyn. At least it would be calmer there.”  
Rhaegar blinked. He took a deep breath. “Elia, this isn’t like you.”

“Everyone has their breaking point, and your father is mine.”

* * *

Mother wasn’t any help either. “No.”

“It’s just I don’t know what else to do with him.”

“He’s not my problem anymore.”

“He’s your brother.”

Rhaella Targaryen gave Rhaegar a pointed look. "That wasn't my choice and we’re divorced. I’m finally with Bonifer. I still have Viserys and Daenerys to raise. I accept I have their problems on my shoulders. You’re on your own with your father.”

“Mother,” he pleased.

“I’m done.”

* * *

Rhaegar counted to ten as the aide continued his search through his father’s belongings. Ten minutes hadn’t even elapsed and the man had already unearthed a five-box pack of kitchen safety matches, seven Zippo lighters, a can of lighter fuel, and a book on how to make one’s own wildfire.

“I can’t keep up with him, Mr. Targaryen. I don’t know how he gets all this stuff, but it’s like this every day.”

It was Hallyne. It had to be. Before they’d gotten the power-of-attorney, Dad had been spending a fortune on accelerants. Rhaegar had the bills to prove it. “Barristan, could you give me a moment alone with my father?”

The aide nodded, collected the confiscated materials, and left to dispose of them.

“Dad, I need you to listen to me.”

“Don’t you order me around, you traitor!”

“Not this again.” Rhaegar groaned as his father ranted about enemies everywhere. His father was finally taking his meds. That was the one thing of which he was certain, but it had only been a few days and the paranoia was still raging. But at least there was a system in place now. The aides would make certain his father took his pills. “Dad, this is it. This is your last chance.”

Aerys Targaryen paused mid-tirade.

Maybe something in his voice was getting through to his father. “You have to stop. The aides are this close to quitting. That Jaime Lannister kid wants out. Barristan—my gods— _Barristan_ is pretty near the breaking point. We’ve been through every home health agency in the seven kingdoms. This is it. Elia and Lyanna won’t let me bring you home to live with us. Mom refuses to consider taking you in. So I need you to listen to me and I need you to get this. If you don’t stop setting shit on fire, we’re going to have to put you in a nursing home.”

“Burn them all.”

It was at times like these that Rhaegar wondered if this “prince-who-was-promised” crap was all it was cracked up to be.

* * *


	2. Not Enough - Tywin, Joanna

The ballroom is packed with Westeros’ most influential people celebrating New Year’s Eve, but as Tywin whirls Joanna expertly around the dance floor, it feels like they’re the only people there.

His hand is warm against her bare back.

“I’ve half a mind to make you take me right here and now.”

He arches an eyebrow even as she can see him considering the idea. “Lannisters don’t make public spectacles of themselves.”

“Lannisters don’t leave their wives unsatisfied,” she breathes into his ear. “How much longer?”

“Five minutes?”

“Let’s make a baby tonight,” she murmurs.

“The twins aren’t enough?”

“No.”


	3. French Vanilla - Roose, Walda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From an anon prompt on Tumblr: "Roose and Walda go into the woods together with the intention of pretending Roose is forcing herself on her. He ties her up and pushes her against a tree."

“The sex was very nice,” Walda said.

“Nice?” Roose pressed her.

“Vanilla,” she elucidated. 

“Vanilla,” he repeated. 

“French vanilla," she amended. And then, seeing him blink, she suggested a few ways they might spice it up.

He stared at the clothesline with puzzlement and then when Walda told him what she proposed he should do with the clothesline, he blinked quite a lot more.

“I found a good tree too.”

“How could you possibly know if it’s suitable for—”

“Trust me.”

He bound her to the tree (it _was_ a good tree) and fucked her as she requested.

Better, Walda said. Room for improvement, she said.


	4. Folly - Tyrion, Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For dk65, meme response Tyrion/Sansa: "being drenched whilst wearing white" and "… successfully turning the other on" I adapted that just a bit.

Cersei has not ordered rain for Myrcella’s wedding to Robb Stark. Tyrion knows she would rather not have been wedding her only daughter to the son of her late husband’s best friend and her enemy either, but as they have all come to learn—even Father—what Myrcella wants, Myrcella gets. And Myrcella wants Robb. Fortunately for Robb, he wants Myrcella.

So now the guests run hurriedly for shelter as this freak rain shower drenches everyone. Tyrion takes cover under the eaves of a folly. The only people not rushing to get out of the rain are the bride and groom, who seem to exist on some other plane where they are the only two people who matter, and Sansa. 

Sansa scans the various spots where the guests are huddling, chattering, muttering about needing drinks and dry clothes until she sees him. Coolly, deliberately, she takes her time as she walks toward him. With each step, the fabric of her pale yellow dress grows sheerer.  
He watches with a slightly slackened mouth as his wife’s skirt clings to her tall, shapely legs. Strands of her red hair stick to the sides of her ivory face now. He is reminded of an illustration he once saw of a mermaid, tempting some fool of a sailor to his doom. 

Tyrion cannot decide if this is a sign that she has forgiven him for consenting to the marriage his father and sister practically extorted her into or if it is something else. He has done his best to treat her with consideration, with kindness, with courtesy, but the chasm between them has seemed impassable. It has been her move to make—has always been her move. Perhaps she is making it.

The so-called “war” between their families is over. Robb Stark has control of his father’s company and his marriage to Myrcella will heal the breach between Lannister and Stark. For all her naiveté, Sansa must see this. She is not who Tyrion would have chosen, but there is no denying her beauty. He licks his lips as the outline of her breasts becomes ever clearer through the bodice of her once-modest dress.

She is nearly at the folly now. Yes, Tyrion thinks. They can make a go of this marriage. It will no longer be some sham. It won’t be a prison. They will get past all the misery and the shame and they will be happy.

And then Sansa comes close enough that he can see her eyes. What was once soft blue, is now hard as steel. “Tyrion,” she says.

“The rain will let up soon.” He wants to say so many other things, but they aren’t alone in the folly. One other guest stands there waiting for a break in the weather. 

“Yes,” she agrees. 

He is about to say more when the other guest takes off his jacket, holding gingerly onto the railing of the folly to do so. He leans his cane against the wall. “Here.”

Tyrion realizes that Sansa already knows this man, knows him in a way that he will never achieve. “Willas.”

“Tyrion.”

Sansa turns and allows Willas Tyrell to drape it about her shoulders. “I want an annulment,” she tells Tyrion conversationally. “An annulment and I won’t sue for alimony. Otherwise it will be a messy divorce and I’ll take you for every copper star you own.”

“I didn’t want this.”

Willas looks uncomfortable, but he stays silent.

“No,” Sansa concedes.

The rain has soaked through her undergarments. This close, he sees everything. She is young and glorious and he realizes he will never have her. He didn’t start out desiring her, but now he wants her more than anything. “I never mistreated you.”

“I never said you did.”

“Then why?”

Sansa hesitates a moment and Tyrion knows she understands to what is referring. “Because you are a Lannister. Because you stood by and allowed it to happen. Because you let your sister and your nephew torment me. Because you married me even though you knew I didn’t want to. Because my father is dead because of your family. Because this is the only power I have to fight you with.”

Willas stirs.

“No.” Sansa holds up a hand. “He deserves this.” Her lips curl and she reaches down to the fly of Tyrion’s trousers. 

His cock stiffens and he hates himself for it. 

“An annulment,” Sansa repeats. 

Tyrion nods. 

Sansa pulls her hands back. “I never got you a wedding present,” she says with a faint smile.

“You just did,” Tyrion tells her. “But I won’t be returning it.”

Sansa wraps herself deeper in the suit coat of her lover. “You don’t have to.”


	5. Bargain Shopper - Roose, Walda, Bethany

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a Tumblr [meme](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/89276309852/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill-write) for [crossingwinter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter).

Walda knew that look all too well. Her husband was smirking. Her sister, Ami, claimed he did it all the time, but that wasn’t true; that was just how Roose looked. This, though, _this_ was a smirk. "What did you buy?"

Now he gave her the wide-eyed innocent expression that didn't fool her one bit. 

She hoped it wasn't another five cases of prunes. For months, they'd been eating them. Finally, she'd approached Ramsay. He loathed her, but she knew he loathed Sunsweet Prunes even more. For the first and probably only time, they'd been united. He came by when Roose was at work; together they loaded up the back of his van; and he took the prunes off someplace else. Walda had suggested a homeless shelter, but she had a feeling he'd dumped them in the bottom of the Weeping Water.

"It was an excellent bargain."

Walda crossed her arms. It would be so much easier if he would let her go to the store, but he preferred to do the shopping himself. 

_"Be happy," Bethany had counseled her over coffee one day. They weren't friends, which was fine by Walda. A little of Bethany went a very long way. "It gets him out of the house. You'll come to enjoy that if you don't already."_

_"But he keeps buying--" Walda broke off. Roose thought it odd enough she and his ex-wife got together on occasion; he would not approve of her telling tales out of school. In the short time they'd been married, though, she had been forced to put her foot down more than once. Every time she turned around there were mass quantities of the strangest things falling down from the basement shelves._

_"I got a very good deal, Walda," he'd said about the five dozen bars of Lever 2000 soap. "You do a lot of cooking," he'd protested when she'd questioned the purchase of ten large boxes of Morton Iodized Salt. "I like to have extra of this on hand," he'd said of the Clorox Fresh Meadow Scented Bleach. At least, he'd gone through the last in good time. Walda didn't like to think how._

_The older woman gave her a shrewd look. "When we were married, he came home with a case of Pert 2-in-1 Shampoo Plus Conditioner. He was balding even then. If it turns into a problem, just don't let him go to Costco without you."_

Roose pulled her out of her reverie. "It's my money. I'll spend it as I choose."

It was _their_ money, but now was not the time to make a stand for community property. "Show me," she demanded. 

He continued to smirk as he unlocked the trunk of the sedan.

To her surprise and relief the purchase that made him so happy was contained to a carved wooden box about the size of an attaché case. "It looks old." At least, it wasn't a gross of light bulbs like the last time. "It's very handsome," she added.

"It is," he replied in a surprised tone as if he was seeing it for the first time. "But it's the contents that are important." He undid the clasps and lifted the lid to reveal a pink velvet-covered interior containing an array of curved knives.

Walda wasn't sure what he wanted her to say. 

"I got a very good price for them," Roose assured her.

"Don't you already have knives like these?" She knew, in fact, that he had drawers of knives in his workroom. 

"These are antiques, Walda."

"Why are the blades curved?"

Roose's smirk deepened into a genuine smile. His face lit up as he explained how these were used for flaying. 

Walda decided not to ask just what her husband would be flaying. It was probably too much to hope that this was like the shampoo. "How much?" 

He told her. 

Walda's amenability had its limits and he'd breached them. "If you can afford to spend that kind of money, you can afford to go with me for ballroom dancing lessons like I wanted."

Roose's smirk vanished to be replaced by resignation. "Fine."

"Isn't one knife enough?"

"If there's one thing the world needs more of, it's knives," Roose told her quite happily.


	6. Double Date - Shireen, Devan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another [tumblr meme thing](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/89276309852/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill-write). This time it's for [vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana) ([onehotsummer](http://onehotsummer.tumblr.com/)).

* * *

Shireen was looking at him like what she was proposing was the most reasonable thing in the world. It wasn’t, though.

“You want me to do what?” Devan blurted out. 

“Take Myrcella to prom,” Shireen repeated. “Then I can go with Robb.”

“But you’re _my_ girlfriend,” Devan protested. He didn’t really like dancing, but this was prom; and he didn’t like the idea of Robb Stark, who all the girls drooled over, taking _his_ girlfriend to the Hyatt’s Rhaegar Targaryen ballroom for all their classmates to see.

She gave him the side eye. 

“I thought we were exclusive. Besides, Myrcella doesn’t like me that way. I don’t like her that way either.”

Now she pursed her lips. Dad had always said that she took after her father. Devan had always thought Dad was crazy. Shireen was sweet and caring and gentle; she was nothing like grumpy Mr. Baratheon. But now, though, now he could kind of see it: the set to her jaw, the hard blue eyes, the unsmiling mouth, the utter determination. 

“Aunt Cersei won’t let Myrcella go to the prom with Robb,” Shireen explained patiently. “Myrcella said it’s because he’s too old or because he’s Mr. Stark’s son. I don’t know. It’s something stupid like that.”

“Mrs. Baratheon doesn’t like _me_.” She didn’t. Devan had only met her once or twice; and even though she was a total MILF, she was also a total bitch. She’d looked him up and down; asked him a few questions about his parents; and then muttered “Flea Bottom trash.”

“We took care of that already,” Shireen assured him. “Aunt Cersei tried to persuade Myrcella to go with Lancel or one of his brothers, so Myrcella went to her grandfather. And then _he_ told Aunt Cersei that given the circumstances, having her go to a dance with someone who wasn’t a blood relative was advisable.”

Devan tried to follow this and failed.

“I don’t know either,” Shireen admitted. “Aunt Cersei’s family is really weird. The point is that she’s fine with it.”

“And your father is cool with you going with Robb Stark?”

Shireen’s smugness diminished a little. “I had to suck up to Melisandre and promise to give Robb some literature on R’hllor, but she and Mummy got Daddy to agree.”

“I wanted to go with you,” he said a trifle plaintively.

Shireen patted his hand. “You are going with me. It’s just in secret for the first part. We’ll all go together. Once we get there, we’ll pair off the way we normally do.”

Devan thought about this. He didn’t like the idea, but Shireen had that unbending Baratheon way about her “All right. I guess.”

Her face lit up and she kissed him then. 

He wasn’t quite ready to let go of his irritation. “Why did you have to come to me last?”

Now Shireen looked just like her mother, serene and slightly dismissive even as she was tapping something into her phone. “Don’t be silly. Hang on, I want to tell Myrcella you’re a go. You’re not last. Robb is last.”

* * *


	7. Required Reading - Roose, Ramsay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a Tumblr conversation with [loveyourcrookedneighbour](http://loveyourcrookedneighbour.tumblr.com/) ([crookedneighbour](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedneighbour/works) on here).

* * *

Roose surveyed the mess in front of him and inhaled sharply. Ramsay had left his college textbooks strewn across the living room yet again. It was bad enough he’d found out his son had excited the attention of the authorities not once, but twice today. Coming in direct contact with his son’s sloppiness was almost too much to bear. He was tempted to consign them all to the fire and cut off all financial support permanently. It was something he’d been considering more than once of late. He was leaning toward making good his threat, when one of the titles caught his eye.

It was a collection of short stories. Ramsay was not much of a reader, but Roose knew his bastard was taking a general education course. This must be for that class. The name was familiar and despite his mood, he found himself leafing through the book. One title brought back strong memories: “The Most Dangerous Game.” It was a story he’d read for school years ago. A rather good one as he recalled, even if the opinion he’d shared with the class—that Zaroff was a misunderstood figure and the true hero of the story—had resulted in yet another trip to the school psychiatrist. 

He settled down with the book in his armchair.

* * *

Ramsay slammed the kitchen door with unnecessary force. His night had gone disastrously. That bitch, Asha Greyjoy, had shoved a loaded Makahrov in his face when he'd tried to get Reek back. Worse still, she had friends. Friends who were also armed and waiting for him. He was failing his business course. When he’d cornered the professor in the parking lot to try and intimidate her to give him a better grade, a passing non-traditional student had whipped out a .45 (why was _everyone_ armed these days? It was almost enough to make him believe in gun control). Fortunately the professor had been as startled as Ramsay, and the police had been much more interested in the gun-toting Sandor Clegane than they were in him.

When Dad found out about these incidents, and he would—Ramsay had no idea how, but Dad _always_ knew—it would not be good. Their relationship had always been strained, but lately it was getting worse. It wasn’t fair. Domeric could do no wrong. No matter what his half-brother did, or how he fucked up, it was met with approval. Domeric had gotten a B- in his Human Biology class, and Dad had shrugged it off. 

_”He’s studying music,” Dad had said on the phone to Bethany. “It won’t matter much.”_

_But when he got a C- on Microeconomics, it had been another story. It must be his bastard’s bad blood, Dad had told Walda._

_Bastard. Ramsay hated that word. It was never, “my son, Ramsay.” It was always “my bastard, Ramsay.” Or “You’re not a Bolton; you’re a Snow.”_

_“You need to work harder, Ramsay. If you need . . . motivation—” And here, Dad had quirked his lips slightly in the way that made even Ramsay uneasy. “—I would be happy to provide it.”_

He saw the light from the living room. Dad was reading. Ramsay squared his shoulders, inhaled, and prepared to misdirect, argue, plead, and beg as was necessary.

His father didn't bother to look up from the book. “I’ve told you not to slam that door,” he said mildly. 

“Dad—”

“Have you read this?” Dad held the book up, the page opened to “The Most Dangerous Game.”

Ramsay frowned. He hated taking Literature classes. He didn’t understand why he had to, but that particular story had appealed to him even if the end was unhappy. “Yeah. It was good.” It was aptly titled too and he said as much now.

“An activity in which our ancestors used to engage,” Dad murmured. 

Normally Ramsay could go a lifetime without hearing about his father’s lineage. It was something Dad harped on over and over, although never with him. Only with Domeric. It was always about fucking Domeric. “What was?”

“Hunting the most dangerous game.”

This brought Ramsay up short. “Really?”

“For hundreds of years.”

Dad seemed mellow, pleased even. Ramsay relaxed just a bit. He could explain away the incident with Asha Greyjoy and the professor if he had to. “That must have been something,” he said. “They had the right way of thinking back then.”

Very casually he picked up his textbooks and started toward the stairs.

“‘No tales were ever told of me.’”

“I don’t remember that line in the story,” Ramsay said turning back.

“It’s something my namesake used to say.” His father closed the book and handed it to him. “And it is something you would do well to put into practice.”

“Dad, I can explain.”

His father fixed him with a look. “If you ever attract the notice of the police again, I wash my hands of you, do you understand?”

Ramsay swallowed and nodded, He waited and when there appeared to be no more censure, he began to back up.

“I have some engravings somewhere about our ancestors,” his father offered.

“Of these hunts?”

“And some of our other family traditions. Are you interested?”

Dad wanted to talk about his family history with _him_. Not with Domeric. _Him_. “Very,” Ramsay said eagerly.

* * *

In the end it was a very pleasant evening. Roose had enjoyed sharing the bits of family lore with his bastard. It wasn’t something he could do with anyone else really—Domeric would never have appreciated these particular stories or details, but Ramsay really seemed to be taking it all in.

“Walda will be back from her step class soon,” he said closing the album.

Ramsay started to say something, but then stopped. “‘No tales were ever told of me,’” he repeated. He picked up the stack of textbooks. “Good night, Dad.”

“Good night . . . son.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you not familiar with “The Most Dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell available online [here](http://fiction.eserver.org/short/the_most_dangerous_game.html) (in the public domain), it’s about Rainsford, a big game hunter of some repute, who falls off a boat and ends up on the island estate of the mysterious General Zaroff. Zaroff, whose initial enthusiasm at meeting _the_ Rainsford is dampened when Rainsford isn’t gung-ho about Zaroff’s hobby (he is a hunter too, but the thrill of hunting big game has palled so he is now into hunting humans). And quite shortly after that, the hunter becomes the hunted. It’s a good story and I recommend it, but that’s all you pretty much need to know if you don’t want to read it.


	8. #5B - Stannis, Melisandre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From [a tumblr meme](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/89276309852/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill-write), the phrase was "I think you missed your calling." Requested by [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana) for [deisegal](http://archiveofourown.org/users/deisegal/pseuds/deisegal). I may have borrowed the drunken doorman from "Rhoda."

* * *

Melisandre wafted past the doorman, uncaring that he ran his eyes over her and leered. His sour breath caused by the frequent nips at a flask he kept behind his station was more irritating to her than the way he undressed her with his eyes. Men had been staring at her like that since she was twelve.

“Elevator’s out again,” he called.

She shrugged and, without pausing, went for the wrought iron staircase. It was an old building, somewhat faded and no longer quite as exclusive as it had once been, but it retained many of the trappings of grandeur. Melisandre ascended the worn marble steps at a leisurely pace. The elevator had been out on a regular basis for two months now. Some of the tenants were in an uproar over the situation, but she didn’t allow it to upset her. It would get fixed or it wouldn’t. A malfunctioning elevator fell toward the bottom of the list of matters worthy of her concern.

By the time she came to the halfway mark between the fourth and fifth floor—her destination, she could see legs. One pair belonged to a workman. By process of elimination, she concluded the other pair must belong to the tenant in #5B. The other tenants on this floor were all women, aside from the heavyset gentleman with the shaved head in #5H, who bred parakeets and aside from his usual errands emerged on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings so that he might do Tai Chi in the park opposite. In no way could the trouser-clad legs above her be mistaken for #5H’s.

“I think you missed your calling,” the workman snarled at #5B. “Electrician, are you?”

#5B’s legs stiffened. His buttocks were coming into view now. 

Melisandre had not had such an intimate look at these before. The conservative navy blue wool trousers did not quite manage to hide the fact that #5B had quite a handsome backside. He wasn’t in his usual suit coat, which from the little she knew of #5B was practically equivalent of him going shirtless. 

“I was merely pointing out—”

“—Look, mister. I know my shit. I’ve been fixing elevators for years. I don’t need your help, okay? If I do, you’ll be the first person I’ll ask.”

“Very well.”

Melisandre could see #5B’s face now. Her first impression was of deep, dark blue eyes and stern, implacable features. The crease in his trousers, the crisp starched white dress shirt, and the close cropped hair were at odds with the scruff on his chin and the lower half of his cheeks. 

“You live in #5A,” he pronounced as in clipped accusatory tones.

“Yes,” she acknowledged.

The workman’s gaze wandered from the electrical panel to her cleavage. 

#5B’s lips turned even further downward. He glared at the workman, who grunted and returned to the job before him. “When would it be convenient to speak with you?”

“Now if you like.” She unlocked her apartment door and waited for him to come in. Closing it after him, she dropped her handbag and preceded him into the living room.

“It’s red,” #5B said after a moment, his head swiveling left and right.

Melisandre thought this should be obvious. “Yes.” She sank gracefully onto the scarlet chenille sofa. “My favorite color.”

He grunted.

“Was that why you wanted to talk to me? To discuss the décor of my apartment?” She patted the seat next to her. 

#5B remained standing and made his case. It turned out that he had been rallying the other tenants in the building into some sort of a group. They paid a considerable amount in rent. For this money, they were entitled accommodation in a well-maintained, building staffed by a sober, reliable doorman. Would she be willing to lend her support to this group?

“It will change nothing.”

He furrowed his brow at her and cited various legal provisions that protected tenants. 

His passion was puzzling, but somehow moving. It belied his very buttoned-up appearance. “This is important to you?”

“Of course.” He seemed surprised that it wasn’t for her as well. “I have custody of my daughter three nights a week. Her safety is very important to me.”

“You’re divorced then?”

“Yes.” He flushed. “Will you join us, Ms—?”

“Melisandre.”

He frowned. “Is that not a first name?”

“I just use the one,” she told him. 

It surprised her how much she disliked disappointing him, but she had her priorities and these concerns were not high on her list. Still, though, he seemed hurt in a way that touched her quite unexpectedly and she was sorry when he gave her a curt nod and hastened out of her apartment.

A man who could summon such passion for such minor matters as a working elevator, well, perhaps it hinted at deep fires within?

* * *

Stannis stepped out of his door only to come face-to-face with the exotic tenant in #5A. Melisandre, she called herself for some reason eschewing a surname. Her real name was Melony Lott, or at least that was what Carlton, the drunken degenerate doorman, had informed him. Stannis had told him to mind his own business, but it was one more point against the woman. The single name was pure affectation.

She smiled slowly at the sight of him. 

He nodded and walked stiffly toward the elevator. She always seemed so serene, so bloody calm. It was irritating. The doorman would practically salivate as he undressed her with his eyes, not that it required much effort—the woman wore thin, filmy, revealing dresses at all times—and she seemed utterly unconcerned. The building was falling to pieces around them and she couldn’t even be bothered to put her ridiculous name on a petition.

They stepped inside the car and he pressed the button for the lobby. 

Halfway between floors three and four, the car came to a sudden screeching halt.

This was not the first time this had happened to Stannis. He gritted his teeth and pulled out his cell phone. 

For the first time since seeing her, she frowned. She stabbed at the buttons on the panel.

“That won’t do any good.” He dialed the number for the Front Desk; identified himself; and informed Carlton of the situation.

“I have a job interview.”

“You will need to cancel. The last time it took the repairman four hours to fix it.”

Melisandre pressed the button once more. 

It was hard not to feel smug and for a moment he luxuriated in the sensation. “Would you care to use my phone?”

She used her own.

While Stannis tried not to eavesdrop, it was impossible not to overhear. Her ordinarily calm voice was strained. She was anxious to interview. This was her ideal job in an organization whose mission had her deepest support. Could she reschedule? From the slump in her shoulders, he had a feeling her enthusiasm was not returned. She hung up, her face an unreadable mask.

They stood in silence for nearly forty minutes. 

It was odd. After her initial dismay faded, the serene expression was back. 

At the forty-five-minute mark, she managed to take a seat on the floor with the grace of a prima ballerina. He held out for ten more minutes before following suit with considerably less aplomb. “What sort of a job was it?” 

Melisandre turned to face him, and her eyes boring into his, she spoke with great passion. While the job itself wasn’t perfect, it was an organization for which she needed to work. 

“There are other companies,” he began.

“Not like this one.”

“I am sorry it didn’t work out.”

She waved it away. “Oh, it’s going to work out.”

“I thought from the way—they agreed to reschedule?”

“No. But it will work out. I know it will.”

“How can you be so certain?”

A smile played about her lips. “I can see myself there. That’s how I know. I am always right about these things. “

He grunted. “My younger brother believes in visualization too.”

Leaning forward and affording him a substantial view of her cleavage, she explained that this was not what she meant at all. It all sounded very half-baked, but she spoke so passionately and with such determination that he found himself almost believing her. He cleared his throat and tried to think of other things that might do something about the tightening in his trousers.

Robert. He thought of Robert. Then of Cersei and their psychopathic son. There. That was helping.

But then she had her arm on his and was telling him how right, how perfect this organization was for her, how this was meant to be.

Her fingers seemed to be burning through the fabric of his shirt. She seemed to be radiating heat. Even the image of Robert getting drunk and falling down couldn’t compete with her physicality. “What . . . what is the name of this perfect . . . organization?”

“Dragonstone.”

He recovered his equanimity long enough to fish out the petition and to ask for her signature.

* * *

Melisandre’s confidence suffered a severe blow the next day. She’d placed no less than three calls to the human resources office the following morning to no avail. Dragonstone had a policy, she was told.

And then at the end of the day, they called. The CEO, Mr. Baratheon, was most impressed with her cv. Would she be interested in interviewing for another position? 

She would indeed. 

Armed with an appointment for tomorrow, she perused the information on the other job and prepared. 

The interviewer was lukewarm toward her, but Melisandre somehow _knew_ it didn’t matter what Mr. Seaworth thought. She had this job. It was _hers_.

“We’’ll let you know,” he told her.

“Thank you for the opportunity.”

“You can thank Mr. Baratheon. He insisted we bring you in.”

Unsurprised as she was when she received a call a few hours later offering her a job, she still wanted to celebrate. She found her thoughts turning to #5B and then with the certainty that had caused her to know she was going to work for Dragonstone, she knew his future and hers were intertwined. 

Melisandre decided she would invite #5B over tonight. She picked up some wine and stopped at a grocery store. Lemons, she thought suddenly. She should buy lemons. Somehow #5B would appreciate it if she had them on hand. She never questioned these insights.

She should stop thinking of him as #5B. 

Carlton would know his name.

His eyes dropped to her breasts as he greeted her. 

She posed her question. 

“Oh, him,” Carlton slurred. “That’s Stannis Baratheon.”

“Stannis Baratheon?” Melisandre repeated. 

“Yep.” Carlton leaned forward conspiratorially as he shared what he knew about the man. Suddenly he stopped short. “Hi, Mr. Baratheon.”

Melisandre pulled herself away and fell in step next to him. 

Carlton called out after them. “The elevator is out again.”

Stannis Baratheon ground his teeth. They were on the first flight of stairs when he finally spoke. “Congratulations,” he said quietly.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Davos was impressed with you.”

“He didn’t like me.”

He snorted. “Davos doesn’t have to like you. He thought you were the best person for the job.”

“To please you.”

He shook his head. “I do not run my company that way. You won the position fairly.” He turned to look at her.

Melisandre could tell he was telling the truth. This man did not lie. She shivered a little. “I was going to invite you to celebrate with me.”

“Was?” They continued up the stairs. 

“I didn’t know who you were.”

“You won’t be reporting to me,” he said quietly. “There would be no impropriety.” 

“Good,” Melisandre pronounced. “Because we are meant to be together, Stannis Baratheon.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“I know these things.” They passed the workman laboring on the stuck elevator car and continued up until they were in front of #5B. 

He pushed her up against the door and kissed her thoroughly. 

The intensity of it shocked her. It shook her to her core. For a few seconds she tried to pull back before surrendering into it. “I think you missed your calling,” she breathed.

* * *


	9. The Ties That Bind - Myrcella, Shireen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a [tumblr meme](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/89276309852/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill-write), the phrase was "Can I tell you a secret?" Requested by [sapphireglyphs](http://sapphireglyphs.tumblr.com/).

* * *

Shireen was probably Myrcella’s favorite cousin and Myrcella had a lot of cousins. They were all Lannisters and while she liked some of them very much, it got kind of weird after a while. Each one was taller and blonder than the last and most of them were focused on getting Grandfather or Mother’s approval. Some of them saw Myrcella as a shortcut to both, although she thought that was pretty stupid of them. Joffrey was the literal fair-haired boy, although she didn’t know why. Ten minutes spent alone with Joffrey and even the dumbest person on the planet had to know that he was the poster child for psychopathy. But somehow Mother and Grandfather never saw it.

When she was with Shireen, though, it was just about being friends. There was no agenda and no fear. You didn’t have to worry that Shireen would rat you out. Not ever. Not even if she thought it was something that her father would find problematic—and Shireen adored her father. Right now, Myrcella needed someone like that very much. It was why she was here in the first place. 

She heard the footsteps on the stairs and scrambled into the closet to hide. The bedroom door opened and closed. 

“It’s me,” Shireen called softly.

Myrcella peeked out. 

“I found some food.” She’d also brought some extra towels, an icepack, and the first aid kit. “Sorry, it took so long. I wanted to make sure we were alone.” She set everything down in an orderly fashion and began tending to the scrapes and bruises Myrcella had incurred in climbing down the tree outside her room and climbing up the one to Shireen’s. Only once those were dealt with did she ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”

The great thing about Shireen was that if the answer was no, Shireen would be just fine. But the answer was yes. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Shireen nodded. “Sure.” She was packing up the first aid kit, but she stopped and looked at Myrcella attentively. 

If anything tested Shireen’s loyalty, it would be this. Myrcella took a deep breath and let it all tumble out at once. “Father isn’t my biological father. He’s not Tommen or Joffrey’s either.”

Shireen furrowed her brow. “You mean, you were all adopted?” Then after a few seconds. “I remember when Aunt Cersei was pregnant with Tommen. How can that be?”

She couldn’t make the next words come.

“Did she have in-vitro fertilization?”

“Uncle Jaime is my real father,” Myrcella blurted out. Gods, that sounded so weird and wrong. What had she done? Why had she told anyone about this?

Shireen cocked her head and tried to take that in. “But they’re brother and sister.”

“I know!” This had been a mistake. Shireen looked utterly horrified. She should go. She started to get up, when Shireen stopped her. 

She made Myrcella sit down. She got her a glass of water and some Advil. “I don’t care who your father is. We’re still friends and we’re still cousins. You can tell me anything, okay?”

“Okay.” She gulped at the water and finally she let out the whole nasty mess. How she’d she’d caught a glimpse of them having sex; how she’d overheard her mother and Uncle Jaime talking about them and their father. “Is he my step-father? Is he my father? I don’t know what to call anyone anymore,” she said miserably.

“What do you want to call him?”

“Father. I know he’s not much, but I love him and—” And then she started to cry. Not pretty or decorously like Mother, but with huge tears that were hot against her face and were accompanied by gulping and shaking. 

Shireen hugged her. 

“I don’t know what to do.”

They sat side-by-side against the bedroom wall running through the options, none of which seemed to be viable. She had a sick feeling Father would stop loving her if he knew. Shireen disagreed, but Myrcella didn’t want to risk it. She would be going to college, but Tommen was still in high school. That let Uncle Stannis out too. She’d never felt like she could really rely on Uncle Renly. Grandfather was almost too scary to contemplate. Joffrey was out of the question.

“I guess I don’t say anything?” But that felt weird and wrong too. 

“What about your uncle?”

“I am not talking to _him_ or _her_.”

“Your Uncle Tyrion,” Shireen clarified. She reached for a box of Kleenex. 

Myrcella took the tissues and blew her nose. It wasn’t a bad idea. Uncle Tyrion had always been there for her. He was smart too—smart like Grandfather, but not nearly so forbidding. “Maybe.”

“No matter what,” Shireen promised, “We’re still family, okay? We’ll always be family.”

_“Family isn't always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs. The ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.” – Unknown_

* * *


	10. Have It Your Way - Stannis, Davos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another [tumblr meme](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/89276309852/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill-write). The prompt was from [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana) for Stannis/Davos and "You forgot to say the magic word."

* * *

Stannis had never really gotten the appeal of Starbucks. Like the Targaryens of old, the franchise had invaded and conquered Westeros years ago. At least the Targaryens had dragons. Starbucks . . . he didn’t understand the hold the chain had upon its customers. It would be more economical if they used their own coffeemaker and beans and it would be better tasting too. It would certainly be less stressful. Davos did not agree.

Thinking Davos might be persuaded by logic, Stannis had worked up a spreadsheet for Davos to show just how much they would save if they brewed their own, only to see Davos shrug in that infuriating but yet somehow arousing way of his. Then he’d done a blind taste test, which Davos had failed quite cheerfully. 

“I like going to Starbucks in the morning, Stannis. No one is forcing you to do the same. You could make your own cup and I’ll stop and get mine.”

But somehow that didn’t work either. He would sit in the car tapping the steering wheel impatiently, wondering what could be so amusing that Davos came out of the wretched place chuckling every time. 

Protesting every step of the way, Stannis now wasted his hard-earned money on over-roasted and over-priced coffee. 

Every morning it was the same thing. They waited in an excessively long line with people who dressed like his sister-in-law and checked their smartphones as if their lives depended on the content they were reading. “Probably playing Candy Crush,” Stannis muttered to Davos, but he was deep in conversation with a plump woman in pink who was showing him pictures on her iPhone. And after she moved up to a cashier, Davos now spoke to a young woman with brown curls and far too much décolletage for 7:30 AM behind him.

Each person ordered drinks like “venti iced non-fat, half-caf caramel macchiato” or “tall decaf soy latte with an extra shot and cream.” Stannis had never managed to unpack the last one. “It makes no sense. Why would she want _soy_ and cream?”

“The barista didn’t seem to mind,” Davos said patiently.

Stannis disagreed with that. He had seen the look the barista—the one who was Robert’s spitting image (there was probably a reason for the resemblance)—had shot the soccer mom. The boy had covered it up quickly enough with a non-committal grunt, but Stannis doubted very much that the employees at Starbucks appreciated these overly complicated orders—not that they appreciated the simple ones either. 

The idiot who thought he was a budding stand-up artist called him over from the line. 

“I would like a medium black coffee.”

“You forgot to say the magic word!”

Stannis ground his teeth. 

“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners? Politeness is what makes the world go round.”

“My mother drowned when I was a boy.”

The cashier laughed. 

The barista looked at his co-worker and then at him in alarm. “Dude, he’s serious.” He addressed Stannis, “He didn’t know. Right? You didn’t know,” he prompted the would-be comedian.

“Sorry.” But he was still grinning like a fool.

Stannis wondered if he’d fried what few brain cells he’d had doing drugs.

“My bad. What was that again?”

“I would like a medium black coffee, please.” Stannis tacked on the last word with supreme effort.

“Grande black coffee, coming up!”

Grande. It was an affectation, pure and simple—an affectation so that customers could feel superior about buying what should be a very basic beverage. 

“Room for cream?”

“No,” Stannis said. 

“You’re grinding your teeth again,” Davos muttered under his breath.

“I said ‘black.’ Surely it should be obvious that I meant without room for cream.”

Someone asked the comic genius for a carrying tray. “Absolutely! You can have a tray and you can have a tray and _you_ can have a tray.” The boy caught sight of Stannis and suddenly stopped.

“Stannis, you’re scaring him.”

“Good.”

“And you know what the dentist said about grinding your teeth.”

Stannis was about to suggest what the dentist could go and do with himself when Davos nudged him. 

“My treat today. Why don’t you wait over there?”

Anything was better than having to explain what “coffee” meant to an overly clever cashier with a warped sense of humor. He watched as Davos smiled and laughed and placed his own drink order without incident. He said “please” and “thank you.”

Both the cashiers liked Davos. Even the coal-haired barista took a moment from their non-stop assembly line creation of drinks to shoot a smile in his direction.

“Oh, and I almost forgot, a grande chai tea latte, 2 pump, soy, no foam, extra hot, and a tall black eye, thank you.” 

“No problem!” The comedian repeated the order back to Davos, “Venti black coffee, room for cream, a grande chai tea latte, 2 pump, soy, no foam, extra hot, and a tall black eye for the guy with the good manners and the nice smile.”

His head hurt from the pressure of teeth on teeth. He felt Davos come to stand by him. “If you say one word about my TMJ I will leave you.”

The barista handed him his coffee. “Medium black coffee, ser.”

Stannis locked eyes with him. He looked at the nametag. Gendry. He made a mental note of it. Robert could usually be counted on to provide support if presented with proof of his philandering. “Thank you,” he said in a heartfelt voice. 

“No problem.”

“Venti black coffee, room for cream; grande chai tea latte, 2 pump, soy, no foam, extra hot; and a tall black eye. Do you guys need a tray?”

Stannis nodded. 

A tray was procured without incident or comment. They walked with their beverages to the car. 

“Who is the recipient of that concoction?”

“Mel. I told her I’d get it for her.”

“And the ‘black eye?’”

“Asha.”

Stannis snorted. Only Davos would buy overly complicated beverages for his current lover’s ex-girlfriends. 

“Why do you hate it so much?” Davos buckled his seatbelt and took the tray from Stannis. “You don’t have to come with me, you know.”

“Why do you love it?”

“I like the ritual of it. I like the sense of community.”

“Community?” Stannis scoffed.

Davos started up the car. “We go around the same time every morning. I see the same people. Margaery thinks you should wear the blue suit to Robert and Cersei’s party.”

“Who is Margaery?”

“The woman who was behind me. She agrees with me about it bringing out the blue in your eyes.”

Stannis wasn’t sure he wanted to know how this had been determined. 

“I showed her the photos on my phone. Oh, and Walda is back from her honeymoon.”

“Walda?” Stannis demanded.

“The lady in front of us. If you ask me, he’s done time, but Walda seems very happy with him. She said he wasn’t thrilled about staying in bed and breakfasts and going antiquing throughout the Reach, but he was willing to go along with whatever she wanted to do.” Davos fiddled with the radio to turn the volume down; WPR’s “Morning Edition” faded into the background. “Oh, and Cliff invited us to see him at the Comedy Club.

“Who is Cliff?”

“The cashier. His stage name is ‘Moon Boy.’ Don’t worry, I told him we had another commitment. You never answered me—about why you hate it.”

“They can’t fill a simple request.”

“Gendry did,” Davos pointed out. “He’s the barista. He’s putting himself through college. They’re nice people, Stannis. They’d be nice to you too if you weren’t so grouchy.”

Stannis didn’t agree, but he felt slightly mollified. “He did give me a _medium_ cup of coffee.” 

“See?”

They drove in silence listening to the radio journalists for a while. Stannis wrested his cup out of the tray, blew on it, and took a sip. And then another. By the time they’d passed through the third light, he was beginning to feel much better. 

Davos flipped off the radio and began to hum. It was an annoying commercial jingle dating back to their childhood, but somehow as rendered by Davos, the tune was almost pleasant. Stannis had his _medium_ cup of black coffee and he was sitting with the man he loved. It was not a bad way to start the morning. 

_"Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce,_  
 _Special orders don’t upset us._  
 _All we ask is that you let us serve it your way.” --Burger King Jingle, circa 1974_

* * *


	11. Dragon Sold Separately - Shireen, Myrcella

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you not in the US, I based Westerosi Girl Dolls loosely on [ the American Girl Doll franchise](http://store.americangirl.com/agshop/static/character.jsp?cm_re=leftnav-_-historicalcharacter-_-textlink) and partly on Madame Alexander dolls.
> 
> From the [tumblr meme](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/89276309852/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill-write), the prompt was "can I tell you a secret?" requested by [sapphireglyphs](http://sapphireglyphs.tumblr.com/)

* * *

Shireen waited by the window anxiously.

“She’ll be here soon,” Mummy promised her in a slightly annoyed voice. “Jumping up and down isn’t going to make your cousin come any sooner.”

Shireen knew this was true, but it was hard to contain her excitement. She almost never got to play with just Myrcella and Myrcella almost never came over to her house. But they had asked and pleaded with their parents and finally gotten permission for a sleepover. Her mother had agreed because Shireen went three whole weeks without being what Mummy called “lippy.” And Aunt Cersei had agreed because she and Uncle Robert had to go to some big party and it meant not having to get a sitter. Myrcella’s Uncle Tyrion was taking Tommen for the night and Joffrey was off at some special camp. 

Finally after what seemed liked forever, Aunt Cersei dropped off Myrcella, and the two girls raced up to Shireen’s bedroom.

“Show me?”

Shireen led her cousin over to the corner where she kept her toys and revealed her favorite name day present, her Westerosi Girl Doll: Good Queen Alysanne. 

“She’s really pretty.” Myrcella tentatively stroked the doll’s silver hair. “I like how it’s in a bun. Did you get Silverwing too?”

“No, the dragon is sold separately.” It was a little disappointing when she hadn’t got Silverwing as well, but Daddy said maybe for her next name day and Mummy said if she did more chores around the house, she could save up and buy Silverwing herself.

Myrcella nodded. “I brought Visenya and Vhagar. We can share Vhagar and pretend he’s Silverwing.” Then she caught her breath and she almost dropped Vhagar. “Where did you get those?” she asked pointing to the doll furniture. “These are so neat!”

Shireen couldn’t help feeling proud. Myrcella’s room was like a toy store. Shireen almost never had anything that her cousin didn’t already own. There was a wooden table and chairs with a matching china cupboard. The plates and glasses were all there too. There was a sofa and an armchair. There was even a dressing table and vanity and a doll bed that Alysanne fit into perfectly. “They were Mummy’s when she was little.” 

They began to assemble a room from the furniture. They decided the room would be at Snowgate, soon to become Queensgate when Alysanne bestowed the New Gift on the Night’s Watch.

Myrcella looked around the bedroom carefully. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Shireen nodded. “No one will hear. Daddy is still at work and Mummy is getting dinner.”

“I met _him_.”

“Who?”

“The boy I’m going to marry.”

Shireen cocked her head. “How can you know you’re going to marry him?”

Myrcella smiled the way Shireen did when she was especially happy. She looked like she was bursting with it. She hugged herself. “I just do.”

“Is he in a different class?” Shireen didn’t think it could be anybody in Mr. Pylos’ room or in Mr. Pycelle’s because Myrcella said she’d just met him and they already knew everybody in their grade.

“He lives in the north. I met him on our trip.” And then seeing this meant nothing to her, Myrcella explained, “We went to Winterfell so Daddy could talk to his best friend, Mr. Stark. Robb is his oldest son. Shireen, he’s so cute!”

As they finished setting the table, Shireen listened as Myrcella told her about this boy. His name was Robb and he had deep blue eyes and the curliest red hair. 

“He’s so handsome, Shireen.” 

“Isn’t Winterfell really far away?” 

Myrcella nodded. “But Father offered Mr. Stark a job, so they’re going to move here!”

“Will he be in our class then?”

“Robb is older than us. He’s fourteen.”

Shireen frowned. “He’s really old then.”

“Your mother is younger than your father. So is mine. I asked Mother and she said six years was not a big difference. She said some men marry women half their ages. They make fools of themselves all the time, she said.”

“You told her about Robb?”

Myrcella shook her hair so vigorously her curls bounced. “Oh, no. Mother wouldn’t like that at all. She didn’t like the Starks. You can’t tell her. You can’t tell anyone!”

“I said I wouldn’t.” Shireen looked at their Snowgate room. “It’s all ready.”

“Alysanne can be going to visit Visenya at Snowgate.”

This wasn’t like it was in the books, but they were just playing Let’s Pretend, so Shireen agreed. She manipulated Alysanne so she was riding Silverwing (formerly known as Vhagar) and soon she was at Snowgate. Visenya invited her in. The Night’s Watch needed more space, she told Alysanne. They didn’t have enough room for their men or for their men to get married and have babies.

“But the Night’s Watch weren’t allowed to marry,” Shireen said puzzled as she broke character. “They can now, Daddy said so, but not back then.”

Myrcella in her role as Visenya did not agree. There was a handsome man of the Night’s Watch who had curly red hair and _he_ wanted to get married. And then as Myrcella, she told Shireen, “His half-brother wants to go to the Night’s Watch some day. I heard him say so.”

“What does Robb want to be when he grows up?” 

“He said he will work for his father.”

Shireen poured out some pretend tea for the two dolls. “I will ask my husband—” She consulted the book that had come with Good Queen Alysanne and frowned. “It says Jaehaerys was her brother _and_ her husband?”

Myrcella thought a moment. “Uncle Tyrion told us the Targaryens were really weird.”

“Okay, I will ask—” This was stupid, Shireen thought. Alysanne was a queen and she had her own dragon. Why did she need to ask? “I will _tell_ Jaehaerys to give you some land. Then the Night’s Watch would have lots of room!”

Visenya jumped up and down. “Then I can marry Robb and have lots of babies. We shall call this castle Queensgate in your honor!”

“That would be very nice,” Alysanne pronounced. 

“Do you want lots of babies?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

Shireen set out a plate in front of Visenya. “Have some cookies.” She wasn’t sure what she wanted. “I might like one. But I want to be a marine biologist or a dog breeder.”

Myrcella looked puzzled. “What does a marine biologist do?”

Shireen wasn’t exactly sure, but she said she thought it involved seals and dolphins and maybe fish.

“What kind of dogs?”

“Yorkies.” She wanted a puppy so badly, but Daddy and Mummy said no.

“Well, you can do both those things _and_ have a baby. I am going to be a firefighter or a landscape architect and have five children. Or maybe I’ll be a ballerina.” 

Alysanne had a cookie too. “I have always wanted a castle named after me.” Then as Shireen, she asked, “Does he like you?”

Myrcella brought the teacup up to Visenya’s lips and then with a look of utter determination, she answered, “Not yet, but he will.”

* * *


	12. Adverse Effects - Stannis, Melisandre, Shireen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From [tumblr meme](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/89276309852/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill-write) an anon requested, ”Don’t make it into a big deal.” - Stannis and Melisandre.

* * *

Stannis stared at the scale in the bathroom. The number couldn’t be right. But his trousers had been tight of late and he’d had a hard time buttoning his shirts too.

By the time the doctor could see him, the number was even higher.

“Your cholesterol is at the high end of normal. I want to see a food diary.” The doctor tapped things into her tablet PC. “I don’t want to put you on anything right away. Let’s see if we can correct this with diet first.”

He wanted to ask the woman where this “we” came in, but he sensed it would not go well. 

“Is everything all right at home?”

Stannis frowned. 

“Could you be stress eating?”

Despite Melisandre’s interminably long trip to Asshai, he thought things were going remarkably well. Selyse and he were being civil. Shireen would be coming to stay for her break. He was even getting along quite well with Robert and Renly. “Everything is satisfactory.”

“Any changes in lifestyle? Are you not getting as much exercise as usual?”

“Nothing’s changed and I am very careful about the foods I eat.”

“Uh huh. How is the insomnia?”

“Much better.”

“Good.” She stood up. “I want to see you in two weeks.”

* * *

Melisandre drew in a deep breath. It was not often she was surprised, but for once Stannis had absolutely shocked her. “You made a donation for 10,000 dragons to the Great Sept of Baelor.”

“Apparently so,” Stannis acknowledged. He was busy frying donuts on top of their stove despite the late hour.

“I asked you to donate $1000 to _our_ church, for _R’hllor_ , and you refused.”

“Well, it’s not recognized by the government. It wouldn’t be tax-deductible.”

Melisandre hated the way he sounded so logical. “And you ordered $2,569 worth of merchandise from QVC.” She waved the envelopes with the credit card bills at him.

Stannis turned the donuts as they bobbed in the fat. 

“From our joint account!”

“Don’t make it into a big deal,” he said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Stannis, you ordered Bare Minerals.”

Now he lifted the donuts one by one onto a paper-towel lined plate. “Shireen is about the age when Selyse and I told her she could start wearing makeup.”

Melisandre blinked at this. From the way Stannis tended to talk about his daughter, it was clear he would never be comfortable with her dating, but yet he was actively buying her makeup?

“And fake diamonds?”

“Synthetic diamonds,” he corrected. “There is a huge difference. Cersei’s name day is coming up.”

She went through the rest of the list, painfully gleaned from hours of sifting through the mountain of boxes that had been on the doorstep when she’d come back from her trip to Asshai. He had answers for all of them. The Vidalia Onion Chopper would come in very handy. Roasted chicken was much healthier than fried so the rotisserie seemed like a totally logical purchase. (Here she looked pointedly at the donuts, but he was busily coating them with powdered sugar.) Tarth’s sapphires were legendary, but their mines were drying up. On and on it went. 

And then he sat down and devoured five donuts. Five. In a row. 

It was mind-boggling.

She had to leave the room she was so angry. 

When she returned, he had vanished into the bedroom and fallen asleep and nothing would wake him. 

Gritting her teeth, she did the dishes. When she put away the eggs, she was startled to see a mess waiting in the refrigerator. Jars of peanut butter and jams were open, tablespoons still sticking out of them. Containers of leftovers were half open. And sitting in the crisper drawer, as if it were the most logical place in the world for it, was the remote to the television. In five minutes she was on the phone to Thoros. He was drunk by the sound of it, but he finally pulled himself together and suggested that perhaps a break was in order.

“He is the one. I cannot abandon him. I was away for two weeks!” 

“If he’s Azor Ahai, it’s not going to be good for R’hllor if you kill him with the Vidalia Onion Chopper like you just threatened to.”

Melisandre supposed he had a point.

Thoros was silent for a moment. “A Sony PS4? You don’t suppose he would let me—”

She hung up the phone.

* * *

Shireen had never been the biggest fan of Melisandre. Rationally speaking, she knew her parents’ troubles had started long before Melisandre and dyed red hair had ever entered the picture, but it was very hard not to blame her. Still, things had been stabilized for a while now. Her mother was happy enough. She was even dating. And up until recently Daddy had been, if not exactly happy, not quite so miserable anymore.

But now it was all very strange.

“Did Melisandre move out?”

Daddy had that slightly wild look to his eyes when things were falling apart. 

“And why are there fifteen QVC boxes in my bedroom?” 

“Melisandre appears to have bought some things.” 

“From QVC?” That seemed so very pedestrian for Melisandre. She was the type of person who shopped at weird little boutiques that specialized in exotic goods from far-off parts of Essos. Not that Shireen had ever seen her shop. Melisandre just had things when she needed them. She did not cook (so why would she need five Vidalia Onion Choppers?). She did not clean (OxiClean and Melisandre seemed to be antithetical). And she certainly did not play video games on Sony PS4s. 

Shireen didn’t like what she was seeing. Daddy was puffy, like he was gaining weight and that was strange. All her life, he’d been very careful with what he ate. He didn’t even put butter on toast. “Where is Melisandre?” she tried again.

“At the Springhill Suites by the airport.”

Shireen was out the door and on the phone to Rickon Stark as soon as possible. “Remember that thing I told you about with my father? From last year?”

“Sure. How could I forget?”

“We need evidence.”

* * *

Stannis shook his head. “There is nothing wrong with me.”

Melisandre disagreed. So did his daughter. She’d brought along that boy—Ned Stark’s son—the one who had been in and out of trouble most of his adolescence. 

“Daddy, you know we’re right.”

He knew no such thing. “The adverse effects you claim I am suffering are common to an extremely small percentage of the population.”

“I did not order nearly $3,000 of merchandise from QVC, Stannis.”

Rickon Stark was fiddling with the computer. “What’s your password?”

Stannis ground his teeth. 

“Stannis. Log onto that computer or I am leaving you.”

So much for her mistaken belief that he was Azor Ahai, he thought. He was about to say it aloud, when his daughter pushed Rickon out of the way and typed in a password. “How did you—”

“It’s been ‘onion 42%knight’ for years.”

And then it began to play. It was footage from a video camera and it was grainy, but there was no question about it. He was on the phone chatting with a QVC representative, buying three fondue pots, and sharing a childhood memory of having fondue with his brothers and his parents. As far as Stannis could recall, he had not ever actually had fondue, let alone with his family.

_”They’re for my brothers and I,” he was telling a woman with a northern accent. “There are three of us.”_

_“Aww, you’re making me tear up here. Well, sweetling, you just got the last three. Now we can even ship the two directly to your brothers.”_

Stannis felt his jaw dropping. He had an entire conversation with Shireen where he dangled participles, split infinitives, used incorrect verbs, employed appalling colloquial slang, and essentially slaughtered the common tongue. He also happened to be making cheese and peanut butter quesadillas at the same time. 

“He got like this last year,” Shireen was explaining to Melisandre. “It’s the insomnia medication. He didn’t believe me when it happened. When he started sleeping again, he stopped taking the pills and he was fine.”

“When Shireen told me about it, I said we should record it if it ever recurred,” Rickon finished.

“Where are these pills?” Melisandre demanded. 

Stannis stared at all the boxes Shireen and Rickon were hauling out of her room. Perhaps QVC took returns?

“So did you really buy a PS4?” Rickon Stark asked casually. “I could hook it up for you.” He quickly found the box. “Oh, wow, you got Assassin’s Creed too!”

Melisandre returned from the bathroom holding up his insomnia medication. “You are never taking these again.”

He let her remove the pills. Gritting his teeth, he asked for an account of his behavior over the last few weeks. It had been an expensive bout with insomnia; he’d be paying the bills for months. 

The phone began to ring.

“Oh, hi, Uncle Renly. Yes, Daddy is here.”

 _He had ordered and shipped fondue pots for Robert and Renly._ The nightmare was just beginning.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired partly from an experience [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana) had when she was on insomnia medication that she shared with me (although I don't think it was quite as extreme). Thanks to her for beta reading this too!
> 
> Oh and the cheese and peanut butter quesadillas are from Buffy.


	13. Crushing - Oberyn Martell, Tywin Lannister, Ellaria Sand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a tumblr meme for [virginiagentlenerd](http://virginiagentlenerd.tumblr.com/), the prompt was: "trying to turn the other on), Oberyn/Tywin."
> 
> I was inspired to set this partly at a public swimming pool upon reading that this is a practice of Mr. Dance's to go swimming every morning...

* * *

Oberyn considered the problem that was Tywin Lannister.

“You hate him,” Ellaria pointed out.

They were both dressed for once. Dressed and sitting and waiting for it to be their turn to discuss Dorea’s performance with her second-grade school teacher. 

Oberyn leaned against the pale-yellow tiled wall. His daughter’s artwork hung directly opposite him. Dorea had many talents, but art did not appear to be among them. “I know. That is the problem. I can’t stop thinking about him.”

“He is not bad looking for his age,” Ellaria offered.

“No.” Tywin Lannister, was in fact, exceedingly fit. 

He’d been at one of King’s Landing’s unheated public pools early in the morning. No one but hardcore swimmers utilized their facilities that early and despite his penchant for indulging his appetites, Oberyn liked to stay disciplined. Regular exercise was called for. He’d been approaching the pool from the locker room when he’d seen him from behind. Tall, muscled despite his age, the man had made a perfect dive into the chilly water. He’d swum with strong, even strokes. Oberyn’s breath had caught at the sight. It was only when the object of his admiration turned around and came closer that he’d realized who it was: Tywin Lannister.

Ellaria pulled him out of his reverie. “But he would never be interested in being with you or with me. He’s a homophobe and a prude.”

Oberyn pursed his lips. In his experience, such protestations often hid secret passions. 

“And you hate him,” she reminded him for the second time. 

“I do.” But he couldn’t stop thinking about him either.

* * *

For the past thirty years, whenever Tywin found himself in King’s Landing, he swam in the mornings. He swam because it was excellent exercise and because it focused him. He used the public pool because the facility was large and uncrowded at that hour, particularly when the weather turned cooler. No one knew him there and no one bothered him.

It was therefore without pleasure that Tywin noticed Oberyn Martell for the fourth time in as many days. On the past three occasions, he’d been leaving just as his business rival was arriving and it had been a simple matter of exchanging nods. Now, however, more would be required. The man was walking into the locker room with him. “Martell,” Tywin said in a clipped voice.

“Lannister.”

Tywin turned his back to face the locker assuming the interaction was over, but to his annoyance Oberyn Martell continued to speak, first of inanities. Tywin could ignore those. He grunted a few times and then when he did not take the hint, he turned and fixed him with the steely-gaze that usually turned most men to jelly. 

Oberyn Martell was unfazed. Instead he turned the conversation to something that could not be ignored: weaknesses in Baratheon Securities. 

“Set up an appoint—”

“You misunderstand me. This is . . .” Oberyn let the words linger as he slowly unbuttoned his too-tight shirt.

“Yes?” Tywin said impatiently. 

“One moment.” 

Tywin stood there, half undressed, waiting while the Dornishman took a seeming eternity to gather his thoughts. “I do not have all day.”

“I would prefer not to meet in such an open manner,” his rival clarified. “Too many prying eyes.”

“Ah.” This Tywin understood. He glanced around the locker room. “No one is here now.”

Like treacle from a bottle, the words dripped out slowly. He was out of his day clothes and in his trunks while Oberyn was still working on removing his shirt. Unbidden and unwanted came a memory of Joanna unhurriedly sliding her dress off. 

“Ah, we shall have to continue this discussion another time,” Oberyn remarked with obvious regret. He gestured behind them where the object of their discussion was undressing with rapid speed. “Perhaps you could come to my house for dinner tonight. Some good Dornish wine? My paramour, Ellaria, she is a fine cook.”

It would take enough ammunition to destroy the combined corporations of Stannis Baratheon, Robb Stark, and Balon Greyjoy to get Tywin to break bread willingly with Oberyn Martell and his mistress. He was about to tell the man to hurry it up when a cell phone went off. 

“What? Is she unharmed? Where? Be calm, my love. I shall be there as soon as I can.” H turned to Tywin. “My youngest. She fell off her bike.”

Tywin stared after him. He exhaled in irritation and headed out of the locker room. It was galling to see that Stannis Baratheon was doing the same exact thing. “Baratheon.”

“Lannister.” 

He turned back to see Oberyn Martell grabbing his bag and with his shirt still open, practically running from the room. “He moved like a snail for nearly ten minutes and now he hurries,” he muttered.

Stannis Baratheon made a sound halfway between a cough and a snort. 

“You have something to say?”

Baratheon made the left turn down the tunnel. “It’s none of my business,” he said stiffly.

Tywin was about to shrug it off, but there was something that niggled at him. Somehow he knew this had nothing to do with business. “Explain yourself.”

“He’s more blatant than Renly.” Baratheon barked out a laugh. “With less discernment, though. Good morning.”

Tywin stood in the dank tiled tunnel gradually realizing what had been implied: the sudden willingness to give him insider information, the slow striptease, the soulful looks . . . He felt the blood rushing to his face and to other parts of his anatomy. 

He fairly raced to the icy cold water.

* * *

“Not everyone is as open as you are, Oberyn,” Ellaria consoled him that night as they leisurely ate raw oysters at one of the restaurants on the bay. “Besides you hate him.”

It was not much consolation. Oberyn was about to respond that hate and lust were not necessarily unrelated when he caught sight of a man with a ramrod straight back walking by them. The curve of his buttocks was quite pleasing. 

“Stannis, over here!” another man called. 

Oberyn looked at Ellaria.

“Him you have a shot with.”

* * *


	14. Share and Share Alike - Jaime, Brienne, Margaery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a Tumblr prompt from YellowDelaney "J/B having a “friend” over and the other accidentally interrupting." It was supposed to be semi-NSFW, but yeah, that didn't happen. It did get cracky as hell.

* * *

Jaime did not understand why Margaery Tyrell was his problem. Come to think of it, he really wasn’t sure what the issue was.

Cersei distilled it down for him. “That slut, who killed my son, is living on Lannister property, engaged in disgusting relations with her gargantuan girlfriend.”

“To be fair, Cersei, it is her house now. Joffrey’s will—”

She wheeled on Tyrion. “She tricked him into that. I know she killed him. I want her destroyed!”

Father was less emotional. “Your sister is right about one thing; Margaery Tyrell is damaging the family name.” He was busy writing, but he paused in the act of picking up one of his files. “We’ll try and buy her off first.”

Tyrion’s eyebrows shot up when he saw the figure on the check, but then he shook his head. “Margaery has a substantial amount of money even without the inheritance. The will is valid. It’s her house and her property as far as the law is concerned. There’s no proof Joffrey’s boating accident was anything but. If she wants to have wild orgies on her property, as long as they’re all consenting adults and as long as they don’t disrupt city ordinances, she can.”

But one did not say no to Father or Cersei lightly and for some reason they decided Jaime should be the one to deal with the Margaery Tyrell problem. 

He did have ammunition. Father’s detectives had been busy. After a discreet interval, Margaery began to kick her heels up and had taken up with a tall leggy blonde—a very tall blonde. At first, Jaime had thought they had to be wrong. Nothing about the photos of Brienne Tarth said brazen slut. If anything they suggested a woman who was destined for a life with thirty-seven cats and a lifetime gym membership. The pictures did scream closeted lesbian, but as far as the investigators had been able to ascertain, the woman had lived a very dull, very pedestrian life with no obvious lovers male or female.

But when he looked more closely, there were a few things that hinted otherwise. Brienne Tarth had been a close associate of Renly Baratheon’s. It was evidently through him that she’d met Margaery Tyrell. And just like Joffrey, Renly had died alone and in somewhat suspicious circumstances leaving Margaery with a sizeable inheritance. Brienne Tarth hadn’t been around during Joffrey’s courtship and marriage to Margaery, but as soon as he’d died, she’d reemerged on the scene. 

The most recent pics suggested that Brienne was now very much a fixture in Margaery’s life. Short skirts and designer tops had replaced the baggy trousers and golf shirts. Her fresh-scrubbed freckled face was now exquisitely made-up, not that it did any good. And if the young woman seemed ill-at-ease with her new look, Jaime cynically reflected that it wouldn’t take long for her to get used to it.

Tyrion looked at everything and agreed. The best strategy would be to work on Brienne. If they could deal with her, they would have leverage with Margaery.

* * *

Brienne was upstairs when she saw the estheticians approaching the house like an advancing army. They were coming for her. Well, technically, they were probably here for Margaery, but she would be dragged into it just like all the other times.

_It’s just a facial, Brienne. It’ll be good for your skin._

_Oh, don’t be silly, it’s just nail polish._

_You kill yourself working out, but you can’t stand a little leg wax?_

Working out was fun. Leg waxes hurt like the seven hells combined. It was impossible to say anything like that to Margaery, though. Brienne should know. She had tried often enough. Margaery was like wisteria, sweet smelling and lovely, and given the right climate—more than capable of pulling a structure down. 

The tactics Brienne had always employed against the male establishment, who had stood in her way over so many things, were as ineffective as traditional military tactics against a guerilla force. Margaery had been getting her way since she could talk, and Brienne’s recalcitrance against all things feminine had crumbled in the face of Margaery Tyrell.

Feeling like a first-class coward, Brienne fled down the backstairs to the beach. At first she walked and then when she heard Margaery calling for her, she ran. It was only when she was out of sight of the house that she stopped. She braced herself against the fencing between Margaery’s property and that of Cersei Lannister’s and panted.

“Are Targaryen hordes chasing you?” someone drawled with amusement.

Brienne looked to the right of her. A tall golden-haired man was standing on the path. He was a Lannister. That first night when Margaery had hired her she’d shown her photos of Joffrey’s family. This was Cersei Lannister’s twin brother. James? No, Jaime.

“Estheticians.”

“I believe they’re called Essonians. A bit racist, are you?”

Brienne brought herself up. “Manicurists. Masseuses. People who want to exfoliate me.” She still didn’t know exactly what that meant. “That’s what they call themselves: estheticians.”

He looked past her. “I believe you are safe. There is no one with a loofah in sight.”

“This is private property.”

Jaime Lannister smirked. “Actually, no it’s not. This is a right-of-way. It goes all the way down the coast. Why are you afraid of estheticians?”

“If you’d ever had your legs waxed, you’d know why,” she mumbled. “And I’m not afraid of them. I just don’t—”

“Well, come for a walk. If I see anyone with an emery board, I promise to protect you.”

“I don’t need protection. I just don’t like makeovers.”

* * *

From the balcony, Margaery watched Brienne. For days now she would vanish toward the beach and she wouldn’t return for hours.

Loras stood next to her. “That’s what you get for falling in love with a straight girl.”

“I’m not in love with her and Brienne isn’t straight. Not entirely anyhow.” But he wasn’t wrong either. By now she should have been able to seduce Brienne into bed. The seven knew she’d tried.

“Does she even know you want her? She’s not very smart about things like that. I swear she thought Renly was straight up until the very end.”

Margaery ignored him. 

Her brother was peering out of Joffrey’s telescope—not that her second husband had ever used it. “She’s walking on the beach with Jaime Lannister and they seem very comfortable with each other. How long has that been going on?”

Margaery looked. “A week.”

“And you’re not worried?”

“My bitch of a mother-in-law probably set him on her.”

Loras bent down over the telescope again. “To do what? Seduce her? She’s laughing and staring at him the way she used to do with Renly.”

Margaery shrugged it off. She had been considering the problem and she thought she had a solution that would leave all parties satisfied.

* * *

Tyrion listened to his brother and tried very hard not to burst out laughing. “So Brienne Tarth is imprisoned against her will?”

“Don’t twist my words.”

“You said, ‘She’s trying to escape from Margaery’ and that ‘Margaery has her hooks into her and she can’t get away.’ That would seem to imply—”

“What I meant is that Brienne is not that into the relationship. I don’t know how gay she is—”

A scoff escaped his lips. “She’s gay enough.”

Jaime’s mouth was set in a stubborn line. “—But she wants out; I can tell.”

“Have you offered her the check?”

“Brienne is very honorable.”

“The fact that she’s living off of Margaery Tyrell suggests that her honor isn’t—”

“She would be very insulted if I offered her a check,” Jaime insisted. “I have another way around. Margaery called me. She wants to talk about Cersei’s offer to buy the house. I’m going over there tonight.”

Tyrion thought it was fortunate Jaime was as good looking as he was. If his brother had been forced to rely on his wits, he would have starved long ago.

* * *

In retrospect, perhaps the choice to watch _The Return of the King_ had been a poor one, but it was that or suffer through another Dornish-rules football game, and Margaery had her limits. Brienne was far too into the film. She was hunched over in intensity watching the endless battle scenes. “Have some more wine,” Margaery suggested, even though that was problematic too. Alcohol did not loosen Brienne so much as it tended to make her comatose, but there was a narrow window where Brienne would relax ever so slightly.

Brienne drank absently.

“We should get massages tomorrow.”

“I don’t like them,” Brienne insisted.

That was utter nonsense. Everyone liked having a massage. 

“Margaery, I really don’t care for all this stuff. When you asked me to be your bodyguard, I was fine with it. I even understood that you wanted to make it look like we were friends, but this is not—”

Margaery seized the moment and turned down the volume on the TV. “It’s getting uncomfortable, right?”

Brienne nodded vigorously. “It’s just we’re starting to cross some boundaries.”

She turned off the TV and angled her body closer to Brienne. “I am so glad you said that, because I feel the same way too.”

“You do?”

Margaery inched forward. She handed Brienne her glass. “It’s been bleeding over, your job and our friendship and—”

Brienne sipped and set the wine back down. “—I do like you.”

“Oh, good! I like you too.” She placed her hand quite casually on Brienne’s upper thigh. If she did this right, she’d be climbing Brienne like a tree very, very shortly. “I was so mixed up after Joffrey’s death and Cersei hasn’t made things any easier.” Margaery gazed off into the light of the end table lamp. Her eyes began to water with gratifying quickness. “You don’t know what it’s been like. I should never have married Joffrey. I know that now.”

The tears were making Brienne awkward. That was fine as far as Margaery was concerned. The important thing was that she wasn’t pulling away and that was good. Margaery threw herself at her in a tight hug. “You’re so good to me.”

“Maybe you should stop drinking,” Brienne began, but she wasn’t making any move to escape.

Margaery let the tears dry up. 

“Are you okay?”

Margaery pulled away ever so slightly. She was inches from Brienne. “No, I’m not.”

“Do you want me to call anyone? Your brother? Your grandmother.”

The last thing she needed was her grandmother. Margaery shook her head. “You’re all I need.” And then while Brienne was processing this, very deliberately, she parted her lips and kissed her.

* * *

Tyrion’s cautionary words were coming back to haunt Jaime in a big way.

_“She’s gay enough.”_

Margaery Tyrell was draped on Brienne Tarth like a tight dress on a three-dragon whore. The two women were kissing and their legs were intertwined. 

Brienne saw him first. She started struggling.

“Oh, hi,” Margaery said very brightly when she realized he was there. “You’re just in time.”

Words sprung to his lips half-formed. 

“I can explain,” Brienne was saying.

Margaery shushed her. “It’s fine, sweetling. Jaime is a man of the world and I don’t mind sharing.”

Jaime’s voice sounded strangled to his own ears. “I do.”

“I would have thought you were more liberal,” Margaery commented. She was visibly annoyed. “It’s the perfect solution.”

“Sharing? ME?” 

Jaime was about to say something cutting when he saw Brienne’s face, flushed with confusion, embarrassment, and he thought, possibly anger. 

“Darling, it’ll be fine. I’ve done this before. You like him. You like me. I like the both of you.”

Brienne tried to twist away and when that didn’t work, she pushed Margaery. Hard.

Margaery fell off the sofa and onto the floor with a thud. 

Half horrified by what she had done and half defiant, Brienne stood up. “I’m not gay, Margaery, and I’m not interested in you.”

Jaime felt absurdly relieved by both declarations.

* * *

Tommen Baratheon listened patiently as his mother let loose with a volley of what she called evidence against Margaery Tyrell. He really didn’t get what she was so upset about. Uncle Renly had been gay and Joffrey had been crazy. So what if Margaery hadn’t been a virgin? And who cared if Uncle Jaime had started dating a woman who had been living with Margaery?

Margaery had explained it all to him. Her gaydar had been a little off and she’d misjudged the situation. 

“She’s dangerous,” Mother was insisting to Grandfather.

Joffrey had been a full-blown psychotic and Mother had always made excuses for him. But somehow Margaery was dangerous? It didn’t make a lot of sense. 

“And now she’s living with Sansa Stark!”

Grandfather caught Tommen’s eye. Tommen made a minute nod and ducked his head down and focused on his iPad. Now Mother ranted about Sansa for a while. Tommen tuned her out as Mother went on and on about fortune-hunting lesbians. He’d had a long talk with Grandfather about his trust fund and the importance of pre-nuptial agreements for when and if it got that far. And while Grandfather seemed less than enthused about Margaery as a person and he really, really hated that Sansa was mixed up in the situation, he’d conceded that Margaery was a Tyrell and it would be a valuable connection for him. The Stark girl could be removed if necessary. Besides Tommen was almost twenty-two and he needed to start acting like a Lannister, Grandfather said. 

Tommen had been tempted to retort that he was a Baratheon and that he liked Sansa just as much as Margaery, but you didn’t say things like that to Grandfather. Not unless you wanted him to stroke out.

Sansa was bi. Margaery was bi. It wasn’t like the old days. Tommen got to have sex with two really hot women. Maybe Uncle Jaime didn’t like to share, but Tommen didn’t mind. 

Besides the whole situation had brought Uncle Jaime together with Brienne, so Tommen didn’t see what the problem was. Tommen quite liked Brienne and for the first time, in like forever, Uncle Jaime seemed very happy.

* * *


	15. Visiting Hours - Davos, Marya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [a tumblr prompt](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/95209634102/send-me-a-ship-and-a-number-and-ill-write-a-short-fic), Davos/Marya "meeting in prison au" requested by [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana). Thanks to [tafkar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tafkar/pseuds/tafkar) for beta reading!

* * *

Sal’s mouth stretched into a broad grin upon seeing him. “Twice in one month, my old friend!”

Davos smiled back and pushed the twinges of guilt away. He had promised Sal’s second wife he would visit Sal in prison the next time he was in Cape Wrath. He valued his friendship with Sal. The man had saved him from more than one near death experience. Davos had stood up for him at both his first and second wedding, and he loved Sal like a brother . . . but he hadn’t rearranged his last shipment so he’d be in this part of the world so soon just to see Sal. He glanced back at the pretty guard with the soft brown eyes and then refocused on Sal. “How is life inside treating you?”

Sal shrugged and they began to talk. 

They passed a pleasant hour, as pleasant as you could get in a minimum-security visiting area, and when it was over, Davos rose. “I’ll be by in another few weeks.”

“So soon?”

“Onions,” Davos said cryptically. 

“Ah.” 

Illegally-imported heirloom vegetables were not a profitable cargo, not even when supplemented with Tyroshi brandy, but it was the only thing he could get that would take him anywhere near the Stormlands. He slowed his walk as he passed by the guard on duty. 

She looked up. 

“Thank you,” he managed as he passed. At least, this time she locked her kind brown eyes with his and nodded. 

Davos couldn’t say what about the guard intrigued him so. She was about his age. She wasn’t a beauty and the khaki uniform was not doing her any favors. They hadn’t exchanged more than a handful of words, but there was something about her that had made him agree to take a hold full of heirloom onions just so that he might see her again.

* * *

The barmaid set another Jack and Coke in front of Marya.

“I didn’t order this.”

“It’s from that gentlemen at the end.”

When Marya glanced over, the visitor to the prison raised his beer bottle in a salute and gave her a tentative smile.

“He’s not bad looking,” Serra suggested. 

Granted Serra thought everyone was cute, but in this case she was right. He had twinkling brown eyes, a great smile, a nice build, and rough, calloused hands that suggested he worked with them a lot. She had already wondered how they would feel against her skin. 

“You know him!” Serra set her Pink Lady down on the bar. “All this time we’ve been sitting here talking about getting laid and you’ve got someone!”

“I don’t have anyone,” Marya said quietly. “He’s been at the prison to visit an inmate.”

“Oh. OH.” Serra made sympathetic noises. “I guess you can’t. Do you have to send the drink back?”

Marya hesitated. “No.” There were no rules against dating visitors, but she found she didn’t want to discuss this with her friend. Not that there was anything to discuss. He had been by twice to see Saan, Salladhor, who was in for 18 WS § 546. Every word they’d exchanged had been dictated by prison policy: who he was there to see; who he was; what he could and could not do while in the visiting area.

“Oh, there’s Rodrik. Why don’t you come with us? He said his friends were going to be there. I’m sure there’s a nice single guy we can introduce you to.”

“Jon said he’d be by later.” Jon was gay and about as unlikely to stop by as it was to rain frogs inside the bar, but Serra didn’t need to know that. Marya waved to Serra’s boyfriend and waited until they were both gone. She swirled the lime around her Jack and Coke and silently counted. He was there at five.

“Hi. I hope you don’t mind that I bought you a drink.”

Marya shook her head, suddenly feeling as nervous as a teenager on her first date

“I’m Davos Seaworth and you have the nicest smile I’ve ever seen.”

* * *


	16. Tumblr Famous - Tommen, Cersei, Robert

* * *

Robert tried to follow what Cersei was saying. His comprehension was made harder by the fact that his lunch had been liquid and that he did not understand a lot about the Internet. “The boy needs a stronger hand. I’ve told you that all along.”

“Mother isn’t talking about Joffrey,” Tommen piped up helpfully.

Robert focused on his youngest child. “Huh? What's that . . .”

“His name is Tommen,” Cersei said in a voice dripping with acid. “ _Your_ son went behind my back and has an account on Stumble.”

Cersei only ever assigned parentage to him when the children misbehaved. Ordinarily she acted as if he had nothing whatever to do with siring or raising them. 

“Tumblr,” Tommen corrected. 

“Well?”

“What is Tumblr?”

“He’s eleven,” Cersei hissed. “Stumble, Tumble, what does it matter? He’s on the Internet interacting with perverts and pedophiles.”

There was a pause and Robert realized they were waiting for him to say something. “Is this like Facebook?” Robert technically had a Facebook page, but he never used the blasted thing, but at least he understood what that was.

“Yes!”

“No.”

Robert eyed his wife and his youngest son. “Well, which is it?”

“Well, it’s kind of a like a blog.” Tommen started to explain what a blog was, but when Robert nodded understanding, he continued, “with lots of photos and gifs and things.”

“Gifs?”

“Animated pictures.”

Like cartoons, Robert thought. That seemed harmless enough. Twice Cersei started to interject, but he shushed her. The boy was doing a good job of explaining. Apparently Tommen liked to look at these gifs and pictures and he had created an account to better do so. At times the explanation veered into the unintelligible, but Robert thought he had the essence of it. His son wanted to share his own creations and he was doing that with this account. 

“I have anons turned off,” Tommen was explaining. “But I do get some fan mail.”

“Fans!” Cersei scoffed. ”Middle-aged perverts.”

“We mostly talk about cats,” Tommen objected. “And there aren’t a lot of old people on Tumblr. Besides I don’t want to meet them. That would be weird. I’m only eleven.”

For the first time since this discussion started, Cersei seemed human. “That’s the point, sweetling. You aren’t supposed to be on this . . . this Tumblr.”

Robert was back on the last thing Tommen had been saying. “Cats?”

“Here, Father. I’ll show you.”

And then half to Robert’s horror and half to his amazement, his youngest child showed them his Tumblr. It seemed to be primarily composed of endless pictures of cats, along with the occasional dog or owl or baby penguin. Some of these were still photographs. Others moved. And one of the cats was surprisingly familiar. “Isn’t that?” He stopped. “That’s—” Robert couldn’t remember the blasted animal’s name.

Cersei did. “Ser Pounce? You have photographs of your cat on the internet?” 

"Well, it's his blog."

Robert thought this all seemed harmless, a little young for the boy, but harmless. What was wanted was to get him playing football or rugby, something to toughen him up. Something to get him some friends.

“What does ‘followers’ mean?”

“Those are the people who read my blog.”

“2141?” Robert stared at the number incredulously. “There are over two thousand people who care about cats?”

“Anfield Cat has over fifty-four thousand followers on Twitter.”

Cersei collected herself. “Tommen, the point is that you are too young to be using the Internet like this. What’s worse is that you are doing this behind my back.”

“If you’re over thirteen, you can be on Tumblr, I looked.”

“Boy, you’re only . . . eleven.” That was what Cersei had said. 

“Then it’s fine,” Tommen insisted. “Ser Pounce is seven in our years, so technically he’s forty-nine.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the amazing [SandwichesYumYum](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SandwichesYumYum/pseuds/SandwichesYumYum), seen originally on [her Tumblr](http://iknownotwhat.tumblr.com/).


	17. True Crime - Catelyn, Roose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The setting is about twenty-five years ago in a time when most people did not have cell phones, and those that did found them extremely unreliable.

* * *

Harmless. A nondescript middle-aged man with a receding hairline, pale grey eyes, and a mild demeanor. Medium build, not terribly tall, but not short either. The most distinctive thing about him was his voice, which was unexpectedly deep and rich. Nothing there to worry about at all. He was harmless.

She wanted to believe that. 

She should not have gotten into his car. She should have lied and said help was on the way. She should have curled her hands around the tire iron and not been worried about the snow that was coming down and covering every surface with a speed that frightened her. 

No one knew where she was. She’d taken a wrong turn miles and miles ago and as she craned her neck back, the snow was blanketing her car. 

A seasonal road, he said. She was lucky, he told her quite pleasantly, that he’d happened down it at all. Almost no northerner would risk it at this time of year. 

No one was going to happen upon her vehicle any time soon. 

She couldn’t pinpoint the moment she’d realized what a mistake she had made. He’d done nothing overt to alarm her. Was it when she had ventured that they hadn’t come upon the filling station he’d promised to take her to yet? When he had turned to her with a reassuring smile, and told her “nearby” was a relative term in the country? No, it was when she’d looked into his pale grey eyes and realized that the man to whom they belonged was not so much harmless as he was empty.

“I’m Catelyn Tully,” she told him suddenly. She’d read somewhere something about trying to humanize yourself to a rapist or a killer. 

He did not introduce himself. 

She babbled away with increasing desperation, telling him about her late husband, her beloved children, her aged father who depended upon her, her King Baelor Spaniel, anything and everything she could think of for this man to realize that she was a fellow human who did not deserve whatever fate she was convinced awaited her. All he did was smile faintly, nod, and gaze at her now and then with those disturbing grey eyes. 

They came to an intersection, although that was a glorified term for it. It was more of a crossing really, and from what she could tell the road they now approached was little more than a track. He slowed down and she wrapped her fingers around the door handle. 

“Careful now,” he cautioned. “We don’t want you falling out of a moving vehicle.” He clicked a button on his side and she watched the locks go down. 

“I didn’t think it was shut all the way,” she lied. 

He didn’t answer, but turned the car down the track. 

“I thought we were going to the filling station.”

“The weather is worsening. I have a phone at my house.”

Maybe it would be all right. Maybe he was just a harmless middle-aged man with limited social skills. Maybe he would do exactly what he had promised.

“I should warn you,” he told her pleasantly. “The phone lines go down quite frequently during these storms.”

Or he was going to rape her, murder her, and then make lampshades from her skin.

* * *

By the time they reached his house, the southron woman had stopped talking. Roose had to give her credit. She was doing her level best to pretend that she was calm. She wasn’t, of course. The tremor in her slender hands betrayed her. She was swallowing more than was necessary too. And there was terror in her deep blue eyes.

“You’re fortunate I found you when I did,” he told her. “The temperatures are predicted to drop thirty degrees below freezing tonight.” 

She nodded, clearly debating which was a worse fate: dying of frostbite or entering his house. She would come in, of course. She was an intelligent enough woman and as she glanced down at her thin leather gloves, her high-heeled boots, her fashionable but hardly practical long wool coat, it was obvious she was realizing she would never be able to withstand the elements or to run far or fast enough away from him. 

Roose allowed her to look around the room. She was searching for possible exits, not that any she would find would help her. It also meant that she was trying to employ whatever idiotic strategy she’d read in in a woman’s magazine by chattering away about his home, asking questions about his life, trying to point out how similar they really were.

“My husband liked to hunt,” she told him, pointing to his knife collection. 

“Did he?” Roose bolted the door. He rather doubted the man went in for the same sort of game that he preferred. Her interest didn’t deceive him. She was looking at the cases too closely, thinking perhaps she could use one of the knives inside as a weapon. By the time she broke the glass, it would be too late. 

She was moving around more quickly now. 

He let her. He liked drawing this part out. 

And then she stopped short at his desk. She pointed to his black Smith-Corona and to the bulky envelope that had just been returned to him. “You’re a writer.”

“Yes,” he acknowledged tersely. Kingsgrave-Blackwood was the latest publisher in a depressingly long line to return his manuscript. 

“A novel, I assume? Or is it non-fiction?”

“A novel.” 

“Genre?”

Roose blinked as she opened up the manila envelope. “It’s a thriller,” he said, surprised. The fear that had been more pronounced on her than her expensive perfume was gone. She flipped past the rejection slip and studied his query letter.

“May I?” She gestured to the chair.

He could incapacitate her with ease from a seated position, but he had rather been hoping she would try to run. 

The woman didn’t wait for permission. “I like this premise,” she commented after a moment. “Have you published anywhere before?”

Roose now watched, half fascinated as the woman extracted a pair of reading glasses and a pen from her leather handbag. “A few short stories.” 

“It’s next to impossible to make it out of the slush pile,” she told him with sympathy. “And I know how hard it is to find a good agent.”

He couldn’t help his curiosity. “Do you write as well?”

She laughed. “Goodness, no.” She glanced at him over the top of her reading glasses. “I’m an editor at Red Fork Publishing. I can’t promise anything, but I would very much like to take a look at this.”

A very long moment passed. “I think we should phone the mechanic about your car before the lines go down, Mrs. . .” What was her name? Caitlin? Catherine?

“Call me Catelyn.”

“Roose Bolton.”

Victims were common enough. An editor willing to look at his manuscript was rarer than one of Rhaegar’s rubies.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr [prompt](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/95209634102/send-me-a-ship-and-a-number-and-ill-write-a-short-fic): Cat/Roose writer and editor au #12. For Vana, who ignored the tackiness of my request and beta read it even though it was a gift for her!


	18. Crowdsourcing - Tommen, Myrcella, Shireen, Arya, Tywin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is in the same 'verse as [Tumblr Famous](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1313767/chapters/5036036). You don't need to have read that to enjoy this, though.

* * *

Tywin Lannister regarded his youngest grandchild. The boy stared back with a mixture of fear and determination. “Well?”

Tommen didn’t answer right away. 

He’d never given Tommen much thought before. He was the well-behaved child, over-plump and over sensitive. When the time came, of course, Tommen would take up a suitable position in the Lannister business and do his duty by his family, but he wasn’t the heir; he wasn’t Joffrey.

These days, though, not being Joffrey was something of a positive. Tywin had never been called upon to provide legal counsel for Tommen, nor had he ever had been asked to pay out a single copper stag beyond the obligatory name-day gifts. 

Cersei did not consider Tommen to be as clever as his brother, and yet the boy had managed to navigate the King’s Landing public transit system to get from his school all the way to the financial district. That showed initiative. It was why Tywin was allowing the boy any time at all. 

“You didn’t tell anyone where you were going, Tommen. Your mother is hysterical. She was ready to call the police.” 

Tommen scrunched his lip. “I didn’t think about that. It’s just that I wanted to ask you something, Grandfather.”

“And the telephone would not suffice?”

“No.” His grandson ducked his head down and rummaged through his backpack. He drew out and put back a wide array of objects from comic books to cat toys before finally producing a pen and a spiral-bound notebook. “I wanted to ask you about money.”

“How much?” Tywin asked tersely. 

Tommen dropped the backpack to the floor, flipped to a clean page, uncapped his pen, and looking eerily like Tywin’s secretary poised to take dictation, said, “I want to know how to make my own.”

* * *

Tommen endured the yelling, the hyperbole, and the fierce hugs from Mother, plus the yelling, the bafflement, and the eventual pat on the head from Father (“all the way across town!”). Joffrey was out with his friends so there was no ridicule—at least not yet.

Myrcella was waiting in Tommen’s room with Ser Pounce. “How did it go?”

“I’m not sure.” Tommen carefully closed his door and showed all his notes to his sister. “I didn’t understand everything, but Grandfather said he would get me a book on the stock market.”

They sat with Ser Pounce between them and tried to puzzle it all out. 

“Was he really angry?”

Tommen hugged his cat. “I don’t think so. He seemed kind of surprised. He said I was the first one in the family to ever ask him how.”

Myrcella examined the sheet of yellow-lined paper with all the symbols. “What’s this?”

“Grandfather said I could start by pretending to play the market. Those stand for companies. I think those are the prices and those are how many shares we have.”

“We could look stuff up on the internet,” Myrcella suggested. “To figure out what Grandfather meant.”

“Yeah.” Tommen stroked Ser Pounce’s back until the cat shook him off. 

“But we need real money now.”

Tommen concurred. “I guess we have to wait. Grandfather said it was complicated. He told Mother he wants to see me for an hour after school twice a week from now on.” He had an idea, though. 

They went online and looked at the file in the Google account, the secret one that had their plan all laid out. Tommen explained what he had in mind and Myrcella thought it could work.

* * *

Cersei watched uneasily as Tommen did what he’d been doing for months: Tommen waited until after supper, and just as Robert had finished his second Scotch, but before the third, when he would become unpredictable, Tommen would ask what Robert thought about the Stormland Stags; appear to listen with great interest; and then he would ask if he could see the _Journal_.

She hated the horrible rag. Father had practically lived with his head behind the financial newspaper for most of her childhood and the whole of her adolescence. Once when she’d dared to ask him for his time and attention, he had icily informed her that the information in the financial news was what helped keep clothes on her back, food in her mouth, and a roof over her head. 

Robert got it because it was expected he should have a subscription, but for all the use he got from the paper, they might as well be using it to line the litterbox of that wretched kitten Margaery had given Tommen. 

Tommen hurried off as fast as his plump legs would take him to his room, newspaper in hand, where he and Myrcella would bury their heads in it. When she would come in, they would stare up at her with overly innocent faces and wait for her to leave.

“I don’t like this.”

Robert was halfway through the third drink. “What now?”

“He’s being so secretive.”

The snort her husband made was irritating. “He gets that from you.”

Cersei tried not to pay attention. “This isn’t like him.” Tommen wasn’t like Father. He was a sweet little boy, not as handsome or as clever as Joffrey, but still she loved him. He had never had secrets from her before—well aside from the Tumblr incident.

“Your father has him playing the market,” Robert explained as he settled in his armchair. “Like we had to in high school, you know, the one where you pick a stock or two and pretend to invest.”

“How do you know?”

Robert put his feet up. “I asked him. I wish he was more interested in sports, but it makes a change from cats and that Stumblr.”

“Tumblr,” Cersei corrected. They’d let Tommen keep his account, but she monitored everything he posted and the people he followed. Unfortunately, it meant she had to endure many, many baby animal photos, and strange diatribes against beets. If he had a new hobby . . . Perhaps Robert was right. “I suppose if Father knows about it, it must be fine.”

* * *

They all waited while Arya checked the figures. “It looks good,” she finally announced.

Myrcella still didn’t know what to make of Arya. She wasn’t like her sister, Sansa, or like their cousin, Shireen, but she was even better than Tommen at math. They had thought they could rely on the computer, but then they’d made a mistake on formatting a cell in the spreadsheet that Grandfather had caught when he’d looked over Tommen’s progress for what he thought was just a useful lesson. Arya was good with numbers and since they’d taken her on as a partner, they were a lot more confident about the figures. 

“This doesn’t feel right,” Shireen worried. 

“We’re not stealing or anything,” Tommen insisted. “We are,” he pulled himself up and with authority announced, “we are showing initiative. Besides.” He clicked on submit before anyone else could object. “There’s no way we could get caught.”

He turned out to be very wrong about that.

* * *

It was worse than the Tumblr incident. That had only involved his parents. This . . . this had a whole roomful of people yelling back and forth. And somehow, they’d figured out that Arya and Shireen were involved too, so it wasn’t just him and Myrcella in trouble. It was all of them.

Worse was the way Grandfather was just sitting there watching, his expression unreadable, his green eyes practically lasering in on Tommen.

“What were you thinking?” Uncle Ned was demanding of Arya.

“I wanted a sword and you wouldn’t get me one.”

“Aside from the fact that they’re illegal, you’re twelve years old!” Aunt Cat cried. 

Several of the adults were puzzled by the connection between sword-buying and stock-market investing.

Arya was unrepentant. She crossed her arms. “I wanted enough money to buy my own. And a morningstar and a shield too. The good ones cost a lot.”

“So you steal money, commit fraud, and implicate Tommen and Myrcella’s father in all kinds of—” Uncle Ned grew incoherent. 

“They just needed me to check the numbers,” Arya said with a shrug. “Besides we didn’t steal anything.”

Shireen nodded vigorous, anxious agreement. “It was all our own money, Daddy.”

Uncle Stannis couldn’t bring himself to speak, he was that shocked. 

Grandfather leaned forward. “You opened an account online, did you not?”

Everyone jumped. Up until now, Grandfather had not been saying anything. 

He did not wait for an answer. “You cannot do that with cash and you are all too young to be able to authorize a transfer of funds from your own bank accounts. From where did the funds originate, hmm? What you did is considered embezzlement, even if you intended to pay Robert back. People go to prison for less.”

Shireen’s lips were trembling. Arya seemed uncertain and for the first time Myrcella was afraid. 

Tommen knew it was on him. “We pooled our money and put the cash in Father’s cigar box. It’s all there,” he assured Father. “And then we figured out your password and set up the account.” Father’s password had been quite easy. It was always Lyanna%My*AnGel.

“So you could buy swords?” Mother managed. Her face was a mixture of horror and anger. 

“That was just for Arya. I wanted the money for an ocelot and something else and Shireen and Myrcella needed it to buy land.”

Aunt Selyse sank down onto a chair. “ _Land_?”

Father gaped. “An ocelot? What in the seven hells is an ocelot?”

“It’s a miniature jungle cat,” Mother said slowly. “He’s been posting all those pictures of them on his Tumblr.”

“You said it would cost too much so I looked it up and I figured out what I would need to feed it and pay for the vet bills and to build a habitat for it. I have a budget.” He looked at Grandfather. “I drew it up just like you showed me.”

Uncle Stannis found the power of speech. “Why do you want land?” he demanded of his daughter. 

“For our Wetlands project.” Shireen found courage and began explaining with indignation about the plight of the environment and how real estate overdevelopment was to blame. She and Myrcella wanted to start buying up some land to protect it.

“We’re learning about it in school.” Myrcella looked squarely at her grandfather. “You told Tommen he needed to think big.”

No one seemed to know what to say. 

Finally Father broke the silence. “Right, Stannis, Ned, you discipline your children. I’ll do the same with mine. We’ll figure out the money part later.”

It was less crowded when everyone but Grandfather had gone, but it wasn’t any quieter.

“Haven’t gotten to taxes yet in your little lessons with my son, have you?” Father roared.

That was how they had gotten caught. Some form from the government had come in the mail and Mother had seen it first.

Grandfather ignored the subject of taxes. “What is this ‘something else,’ boy? You said for the ocelot and ‘something else.’”

Tommen hesitated. 

“Answer your grandfather,” Mother told him in the voice that meant business. 

“It was something Margaery told me about.”

“And what did that little har—what did she tell you?”

Tommen liked Margaery a lot, even if Mother didn’t. “She called it uh screw-you money.” She had actually called it “fuck-you money,” but if Tommen said those words aloud, he would be in for a world of punishment beyond whatever else he was facing. “She said if you had money, you could use it when you wanted to do something other people didn’t want you to do.” 

There was silence at this. 

“And what,” Grandfather inquired, “did you have in mind to do that you would need this extra sum of money? Fight real estate developers to save fruit flies?" He shot Myrcella a glare. "Chain yourself to a tree to stop progress in its tracks? Arm yourself with throwing stars and lances?”

“I want to be like you,” Tommen informed him. “Nobody makes you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Again silence.

“Hmm.”

That’s when Tommen knew it was going to be fine. He and Myrcella sat through the lecture in which their offenses were detailed and a punishment was determined. A lot of their profits would go towards something called capital-gains taxes. Tommen would now be learning a lot about those as he was now to spend _three_ times a week with Grandfather. And their internet use would be very closely monitored.

“What about homework?” Myrcella asked.

For that they could use the computer.

So that was all right then, Tommen concluded. He had a school project where he was to pick a career and research it. Grandfather would explain about taxes and Tommen would add those into his calculations to figure out just how much fuck-you money he would need to become a large-animal veterinarian.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as usual to [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana) for the quick beta.


	19. A Good Man Is Hard to Find - Selyse, Stannis, Davos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now divorced, Selyse Florent hires a nanny to help with Shireen. Her choice has Stannis up in arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr meme post for [Chicky](http://chickren.tumblr.com/) The prompt wa Stannis/Davos nanny/single parent au #46.
> 
> Thanks to [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana) for beta reading.

* * *

Selyse liked the last candidate the agency sent over the best. She shouldn’t have. In the first place, it was a man and there was something not quite right, in theory anyhow, of a male nanny, let alone one who was older than she was. And in the second, it was hard to get past the four missing finger joints on his right hand.

But from the moment she’d met him, she’d known her daughter would be safe with Davos Seaworth. Shireen had taken to him immediately. Selyse liked him too. He wasn’t her type at all and maybe that was why this arrangement worked so well. He was kind and competent and he didn’t pry. And he was genuinely good with children.

“I’ve seven of my own,” he told her when she commented on this. “They’re back home in Cape Wrath with their mother.”

And that had led to a long and earnest discussion about their respective failed marriages.

An amicable divorce. Her lawyer had positively sniggered when Selyse told him that’s what she wanted. From what Stannis had said, his had done the same. But in the end, that’s exactly what they’d had. Finances, property, visitation, all had been equitably and satisfactorily dealt with. Here it was a full year later, and they were still friendly — no, perhaps that wasn’t the right word. They’d never been friends after all and maybe that had been part of the problem, but now it was easier between them.

Davos nodded. “Our lawyer said the same about Marya and me when we divorced too. She was convinced it would end in bitter custody disputes, but it all worked out.”

After hearing horror stories about bad hires of nannies and au pairs from the mothers of Shireen’s friends, Selyse knew she was fortunate. 

Stannis was not so sure. He had yet to meet Davos, but he expressed deep skepticism and mistrust to Selyse every time he came to pick up Shireen. 

He found it highly suspect that a man should want to be a nanny, which struck Selyse as ironic, given the main reason they had finally decided to divorce. “And how did he lose his hand?” Stannis demanded now.

“Not his whole hand, Daddy. Just part of his fingers.”

“That certainly makes it all right,” Stannis said with far too much sarcasm as Shireen ran back up to find a book she wanted to take with her for the weekend. 

“Davos said it was an accident on the job.” Selyse was a little vague about the details, but she thought Stannis was exaggerating the issue. “He’ll be here next Wednesday when you pick her up. You can meet him then. You’ll like him, I promise.” It was not an idle promise. Selyse knew her ex-husband very well and she thought he’d like Davos Seaworth very much indeed.

In a dry tone Stannis had not used since before their divorce, he informed her he doubted that very much.

* * *

If anyone had asked Stannis why he and Selyse had divorced — and no one besides Shireen ever had — he would have said it had been because they’d been miserable together. There had been a quiet kind of love once, but never friendship, and in the end, it had not been enough to keep them together. There had always been mutual respect, however, and it was only that which kept him from going straight to the lawyer when he found out that Davos Seaworth was a ne’er-do-well who operated just this side of the law. Stannis hoped that a quiet word would be enough to make this man go away.

But when he came face-to-face with Davos Seaworth at the door, Stannis had a hard time reconciling the man with the warm smile and twinkling eyes to the man in the mugshot. Words for once failed him as Davos shook his hand firmly. 

“Glad to finally meet you, Mr. Baratheon. Shireen talks about you all the time. She’s finishing her homework.”

Stannis resolutely decided to ignore his instincts that this was a good man. Stepping onto the front porch, he started to unsnap his briefcase in which the detective’s report was contained.

“Ah,” Seaworth said before Stannis could pull it out. “Should have known you’d find that.”

“If you had disclosed your record to Selyse when she asked you, this wouldn’t be necessary.”

“I never lied about it—not to Selyse and not to the agency.”

Stannis frowned. Had Selyse hired him in spite of the man’s criminal past? “You have a criminal record, Mr. Sea—”

“No, I don’t.” Seaworth told him staunchly. “No charges were pressed. The question both the agency and your ex-wife asked me was whether ‘I had ever been convicted of a crime’ The answer is no.”

“All the same, you should have disclosed—”

“What does allegedly smuggling designer knockoff handbags have to do with childcare?” Seaworth countered. “I like being a nanny, Mr. Baratheon. The work is rewarding and the pay’s not bad. I have seven boys. I’m a good father and I’m good at this nanny business too. Your daughter is safe with me.”

Stannis considered his next words carefully. “Were you smuggling designer knockoff dresses, Mr. Seaworth?” 

“Aye,” Seaworth admitted with a candor that shocked Stannis. “And it’s Davos. I paid for that.” He held up the hand. “I stopped smuggling because I wanted to be around for my sons and because I wanted a better life for them. Being a nanny isn’t something I ever planned on, but I’m good at it and I like the work. I like your daughter. I would never harm her.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Can I ask you something?”

“May, not can,” but he nodded.

“Did you run background checks on my predecessors too? Is that why the one who was shagging her boyfriends in the house while she was supposed to be watching Shireen got sacked? Or the one who was stealing from Selyse left?”

Stannis frowned. “Selyse never told me.” Shireen had complained about not liking either, but Stannis had seen no reason to investigate. And yet she adored Davos Seaworth. He shook it off. “That doesn’t negate the fact that you are a criminal.”

“Was a criminal,” Davos told him quite cheerfully. 

Stannis was about to persist when Shireen came running out to greet him. She was an affectionate child and hugged him fiercely. 

“See? Davos is nice, isn’t he, Daddy? I knew you’d like him once you got to know him.”

Stannis did not like to disappoint his daughter, but her safety was at stake—or was it? What did smuggling clothing have to do with being a nanny? “I don’t know him, Shireen. In fact—”

His daughter stared up at him with such trust that he found himself at a loss for words. 

“What your father is about to say,” Selyse said as she joined them on the porch, “is that he doesn’t know Davos well yet, but he is going to make an effort to rectify that before he comes to any decision.”

And that is how Stannis Baratheon found himself at a pub with Davos Seaworth the very next night.

* * *


	20. Earwax Kink - Tommen, Cersei, Robert, Tywin, Tyrion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommen’s Tumblr fame continues to complicate not only his life, but also the lives of those around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same 'verse as ["Tumblr Famous"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1313767/chapters/5036036) and ["Crowdsourcing"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1313767/chapters/5254397). If you haven't read those, Tommen has a Tumblr for Ser Pounce which Robert and Cersei have reluctantly allowed him to keep.

* * *

**Cersei: Earwax kink?**

Tyrion stared at the IM very long and very hard. Finally he typed a response.

**Tyrion: Wrong brother**  
**Cersei: I know you know what this means. Tell me.**  
**Tyrion: Not familiar w/it. Have a meeting in 5. W/Father**

His direct phone began ringing. He didn’t even need to look at the display. “Yes, Cersei?”

“You have to know.”

He sighed. “I hate myself for asking this, but what is it that Jaime wants to do to you with earwax?”

“Not Jaime. Tommen!” There were gulping sounds, sobbing sounds. She was crying.

“Tommen? Wait, what?”

“Tommen has a Tumblr. It’s on there.”

And then the URL came up on his instant messaging software: <http://the-real-ser-pounce.tumblr.com/> He clicked. Cats. Lots of cats—many of them apparently being Ser Pounce with somewhat snarky comments about Cersei below. Then there were quite a few pictures of baby penguins. As he scrolled down, he came across a paragraph about the inalienable right not to be subjected to beets. Tyrion heard Cersei sniffling in the background all the while. 

Petyr Baelish was hovering in the doorway. “Want me to come back?”

Tyrion motioned him to a chair while he continued to look. “I am not seeing anything about earwax. This all looks pretty harmless.”

“It’s on his likes!”

“His what?”

“On the right. _His liked posts.”_

Tyrion looked. “All I see on the right is a description.” He wasn’t familiar with Tumblr, had never really looked at it before. 

“Shit. Wait.” She sent another link through.

Tyrion clicked again. He read aloud, “‘I Want Candy.’” It was a text-based page labeled “Archive of Our Own.” “He’s writing fan fiction about Tristram Shandy? Really?”

Petyr Baelish was frowning. 

There was the sound of breaking glass on the other end. 

“Cersei?”

“Writing it? Oh my gods. My sweet baby. Where did we go wrong?”

And then a dial tone.

Tyrion stared at the receiver and then he glanced over the page. He had first attempted to plow through _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman_ when he was fourteen, but eleven-year-old Tommen wasn’t much of a reader. Tristram Shandy/OC meant nothing to him. And then the words listed under “additional tags” leapt out at him:

_rape/non-con, PWP, watersports, anal fisting, fingerfucking, frottage, knifeplay, bloodplay, bukkake, candylicking, earwax kink_

“What is this?” Petyr Baelish’s rasped from behind him.

Tyrion turned around. “Do you mind?”

“Earwax kink?”

“I have no idea.” Tyrion glanced up. Petyr Baelish, who was rumored to run at least one high-priced escort service, clearly didn’t know either. He scrolled down and the two men read; Baelish providing a running commentary.

“Inventive, I must admit . . . Now that’s anatomically impossible . . . Hmmm . . . quite a common fetish really . . . That is a bit unusual . . . I wonder how much . . .”

They saw it at the same time.

“Oh my gods.”

Tyrion felt sick. “I have never . . . I never want to . . .”

Petyr looked green too. He staggered away from the monitor. 

This was a momentary setback for the CFO. In a few minutes he would be speculating why Tyrion had a page on his monitor with some of the most disgusting pornography Tyrion had ever had the misfortune to read and how Cersei fit into it. “Joffrey’s internet history,” Tyrion lied. People would believe this of Joffrey.

“The boy needs help. Whoever wrote that needs help.”

Tyrion interpreted that to mean that no prostitute in Baelish’s employ would ever be required to indulge a client in his or her earwax fetish.

The 27 people who had given the work kudos needed help, Tyrion thought. As he scanned the story again, carefully avoiding the parts involving earwax, he noted the vocabulary and the sentence structure. Tommen could not have written this. It was really quite polished and well beyond an eleven-year-old’s abilities. But it was also unquestionably pornography and if Tommen was reading this and was into . . . earwax, Tyrion couldn’t blame Cersei for falling apart over it.

* * *

The moment Joffrey came home, Father was there at the door.

“Empty your pockets and everything in that backpack. Don’t test me, boy.”

Joffrey watched in horror as Father confiscated his phone and his iPad. “What? Why? I need that for school.”

“No more electronics. We’re cutting all of you off! In the family room. NOW.”

Myrcella and Tommen were huddled on the sectional. Tommen was hugging his cat. They seemed relieved he was home. That was when Joffrey knew whatever was going on was very bad.

“Sit with your brother and sister. Well? What are you waiting for? NOW.”

Mother’s eyes were red and she was clutching a wine glass very tightly. 

On the floor in a pile were Myrcella and Tommen’s phones and laptops. His computer was there too and it was in pieces. Father tossed Joffrey’s items on top. 

All three of them winced at the cracking sound as the iPhone hit the corner of Joffrey’s keyboard.

“No child of mine is going to be doing ANYTHING with EARWAX to ANYONE!”

Joffrey looked first at Myrcella and then at Tommen. They seemed as baffled as he was. Earwax?

* * *

Tywin would never voluntarily admit this to anyone, but he had come to enjoy his thrice-weekly visits with Tommen. The boy _listened_. He paid attention. If his motives sometimes needed correcting (try as he might, Tywin could not convince the boy that ocelot ownership was not the goal toward which he should be striving), Tommen was bright. He was a Lannister.

Business travel and other concerns had kept him from these lessons for over a month and Tywin had been looking forward to his 4:00 PM meeting with his grandson.

The feeling did not appear to be reciprocated. Tommen was squirming. He seemed sulky and upset about something. He was . . . angry. Tommen was never angry. But perhaps some childish fancy that had been thwarted was to blame. Tywin focused on the lesson. When he was done, he tapped his monitor. “I want you to research this company. I think they might be a worthwhile investment opportunity.”

“I can’t.”

He peered at his grandson over the top of his reading glasses. 

“I’m not allowed to use the computer anymore. Only at school, and only when we’re in class.”

“Why?”

“Earwax.”

Tywin waited to be enlightened.

“I don’t know! We came home from school last month and Mother and Father took all our stuff away. They said I can’t use Tumblr anymore,” Tommen wailed.

“How does this relate to earwax?”

Tommen punched the arm of the chair. “No one will tell me! We can only watch stuff on PBS and only with them. They’re making us play board games together,” Tommen cried in a tone of horror. “And they’re making all of us talk to a therapist.”

“About earwax?” Robert and Cersei’s parenting was often suspect, but other than this business of going to therapist, the rest sounded harmless. The boy was upset, though, and Tommen was usually an equable, even-tempered child. “Tommen, start from the beginning.”

The boy took a deep breath and began.

Tywin listened carefully, but ten minutes in, he knew it was hopeless. He would need to talk to Tyrion.

* * *

Robert tried to follow as Tyrion took them and the therapist through everything. He glanced at Cersei. She was as much in the dark as he was even though she kept pretending she understood. Tywin’s expression of horror had never quite gone away and Jaime wouldn’t stop laughing.

“This is not funny,” Cersei hissed. “GET OUT!”

Tommen appeared to be in agreement with his mother. He looked for all the world like his maternal grandfather—if Tywin Lannister had ever been overweight and deeply upset that his cat was probably losing followers because of his Tumblr inactivity.

“Cersei,” Jaime began.

“GET OUT!”

Jaime hesitated and then finally left.

Everyone was looking at Robert. “I still don’t understand this,” he admitted.

“I never read that story,” Tommen repeated through gritted teeth.

“But you clicked that heart,” Cersei objected. “It’s listed on your likes, clear as day.”

“I did that to be supportive!”

They all stared at Tommen.

“I think we’re all losing focus here,” Dr. Luwin suggested. “It’s pornography, Tommen. Do you know what that is?”

“Dirty stories,” Tommen told the therapist. ”Or dirty pictures. Or both.”

“Can you see why your parents would be upset?”

Tommen’s plump arms were crossed and he scowled. “But I never read it! Why won’t they believe me?”

Robert tried to ignore the headache. He had cut back on his drinking after this whole earwax incident had started and he had not felt right since. It was as if the earwax story had uncovered a stinking rotted mire in his family. First the horrific revelation that his youngest son was into a vile fetish. Then Cersei had gone first to Myrcella’s room and found diary entries about things the girl wanted to do with Robb Stark and then to Joffrey’s and that . . . Robert shuddered. “Why did you click the . . . the heart?” Yes, that’s what Cersei had said. “Do you know this person who wrote the story?”

“She has a Wolfswood Forest cat named Fluffy. They’re big. They can grow to weigh about twenty pounds and—”

“Tommen,” Dr. Luwin said gently.

“She was one of Ser Pounce’s first followers and she always reblogs our posts.”

“And a reblog is . . .” Robert still didn’t get this.

Tommen sighed. “It’s good because they share your stuff with their followers and you reach more people. It’s really good if you know a tipping point person. Ser Pounce is kind of one these days. I like her. She posts about her depression and her bonsai trees and her divorce a lot and she asked me to like and reblog her link so it would have more notes. I never read her stories. I swear.”

“All I see are your posts,” Cersei protested. “How are you looking at these strangers’—”

Tommen frowned. “You probably don’t scroll down my dash so you never see. I don’t read fanfic. It’s stupid and I don’t care about that stuff.”

These hiccups with stock buying and cat posts aside, Robert thought Tommen was an honest boy. He didn’t seem to be lying.

There were a few points that the therapist wanted clarification on and on the third run-through of what Tyrion thought had happened, Robert felt like he had the gist of it. Cersei seemed calmer. Tywin was still slightly appalled, although he had been impressed by Tommen’s having 2,723 followers. 

Tommen, however, was still indignant. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Something I think we can discuss in our next session,” Dr. Luwin suggested. “For now, I’d like to speak with Robert and Cersei alone, please.”

The others went out into the waiting room.

Cersei started to take control. “Robert will write you a check. Thank you for helping us get to the bottom of this, Dr. Luwin. I think we can cancel the next—”

Dr. Luwin shook his head. “These issues we’ve uncovered . . .this goes deeper than what you thought was going on with Tommen.” 

And he began to talk.

* * *

Tommen scrolled down Ser Pounce’s dash hurriedly. He could hear Mother coming down the stairs. Now that they had been in therapy for over three months, it was sort of normal again around home. Better than normal actually. Joffrey had his own special doctor and both their parents were keeping a very close eye on him. Father wasn’t drunk quite so much and he and Mother weren’t fighting all the time either. But there were still restrictions.

He wasn’t supposed to be on Tumblr unless Mother was supervising him directly. Tommen didn’t really mind except that she always had tons of questions or worse, she had started to take an interest in a lot of the things on Tumblr. He had been forced to blacklist _Summerhall_. It was some show that aired on PBS—the only station they were allowed to watch still—and Mother _loved_ it. Tommen wouldn’t have minded except that a lot of Ser Pounce’s followers watched it too and made gif sets and didn't tag. And then Mother made him go very slow when she saw anything related to the show.

“Tommen, we’ve talked about this.”

“I didn’t click on anything.” He waited patiently while she settled in next to him. For a few minutes, he was able to post, like, and reblog in peace and then he felt Mother’s hand on his wrist.

“ _Tragedy at Summerhall_?” she read aloud. “Go back, sweetling.”

“It’s a fanfic,” he explained hurriedly. 

Mother was frowning in concentration. “I don’t understand. Jenny is dead. How can she be having an affair with Ser Lyonel’s daughter?”

“There’s probably lots of earwax in it,” he tried. “Oh, look, that’s a Qarthian sand cat! Ser Pounce likes those.” But it was too late. She was clicking and evidently reading. Out of sheer proximity, Tommen started to read too, but a few seconds later, Mother cleared her throat.

“I’m just going to look at this for a little.”

Tommen sighed and trooped up to Myrcella’s room to complain. 

She listened in sympathy, but she had her own problems. “I haven’t been able to look at Robb’s Instagram in days. What if that skanky Talisa has her hooks into him? I’ve been trying to use Shireen’s phone, but Uncle Stannis caught me and—”

“I have to explain everything to her like ten times and then she found all those shirtless Fassbender pics. It’s so not fair.”

“It’s not,” Myrcella agreed. 

“Do you think Grandfather would—” He stopped short. Somehow he could not see Grandfather having the patience to look at cat gifs with him. 

Myrcella was smiling like Mother sometimes did. 

“What?” 

“I just had an idea.”

“Okay.” Tommen waited. 

“What if Mother had her own Tumblr?”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks go to [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana) who not only beta read, but was the one who gave me the inspiration for "earwax kink" (as far as I know that's not an actual thing. If it is, I don't want to know about it).
> 
> Also, my deepest apologies to any Tristram Shandy fans. I never did finish the story, but I needed something without a large fandom so I wouldn't offend anyone...


	21. Take the Canola - Jon Snow, Ygritte, Alliser, Tormund

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Others make their inexorable way past the Wall into Westeros, Jon Snow, Alliser Thorne, Tormund Giantsbane, and Ygritte find themselves thrown together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a [Tumblr prompt](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/106105627827/queenklu-rilee16): Jon/Ygritte zombie road trip for [LadyofTarth](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyoftarth/pseuds/Ladyoftarth) Thanks go out to [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana) for beta reading!

* * *

To all appearances the convenience store appeared to be empty, but Jon Snow knew you had to be careful. Too many of their men had been turned to wights because they had assumed a location was clear.

But the only pairs of prints he could detect was their own. That was a good sign because there had been no snowfall in the past ten hours, although that was soon to change—the dark clouds were sign enough. The wights could be patient, but ten hours was a little long for them. Moreover, the 7-Eleven and the surrounding environs were damned ugly. 

It was the freakiest thing, but the wights and their masters, the White Walkers, liked to lay waste in pretty places. Give them a glade or an open area where they could artfully arrange their corpses and they went to town. They tended to stay away from places like gas stations with faded billboard signs and the disgusting parking lots of convenience store chains.

In any event, their supplies were dwindling. Jon glanced at his compatriot, who nodded. This was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.

“Bloody wildlings,” Alliser Thorne muttered as they stood inside staring at the near-empty shelves.

“Could be survivors,” Jon countered. “Or our own men.”

Ser Alliser snorted. 

As much as Jon hated to admit it, Thorne was right. Their own men wouldn’t have left this kind of chaos on the inside. But the wildlings wouldn’t have either. They knew to walk in a single file even better than the remaining Night’s Watch rangers. They would have emptied the shelves and gone on their merry way and it would have been more like the Marie Celeste than the Sack of King’s Landing.

Jon and Alliser Thorne silently surveyed what was left in the front part of the store: a few bottles of motor oil, a couple of gallons of antifreeze, windshield washer fluid, some laundry detergent, and a surprising amount of pornography. 

“Over here,” Jon called. The baking aisle was nearly untouched. 

Thorne was unimpressed. “You see an oven anywhere, boy? What in the seven hells are we going to do with baking powder, sugar, and cornmeal?”

“Well, if we had a skillet, a fire, and an egg, we could make cornbread, but I was thinking more of that.” Jon pointed to the containers of Canola oil. Wood was scarce these days and they could use the fuel to fight off the wights. “There are still a few lighters left up by the counter.”

The one-time recruiter grunted, even now unwilling to give a word of praise. 

They investigated further and turned up a few cans of Campbell’s soup and some bungee cords.

“Backroom,” Thorne ordered. 

The backroom was locked, but they made short work of that and there they struck gold: two cases of Cheez Doodles, four of boxes of Cracker Jacks, an astonishing amount of Tofurky Jerky, and a flat of Twinkies. As they poked around more, they found what had probably been the manager’s private stash. Here they discovered assorted cans of Red Bull, Fuze, and five boxes of Tampax. They had no use for the last, but the other stuff would be helpful.

When they returned to the interior of the store, they stopped short. Outside it was a sea of white. 

“We’ll camp out here tonight,” Thorne barked unnecessarily. “In the backroom.”

Jon bit back a retort and then wondered why he bothered to restrain himself. They had been on the move for so long that Jon was hard pressed to remember a time when there had been dire consequences for being disrespectful to a superior officer. 

They decided to make themselves as comfortable as possible. Alliser Thorne passed over the _Playboys_ and _Hustlers_ to grab a couple of ancient newspapers, a few shoppers, and some tattered word puzzle books. They fortified the door to the backroom and settled in with their haul. 

“This band, Bael and his Brothers, looks like they were a big thing around here,” Jon commented as he read through article after article. “The pictures are terrible, though.” He held up the tattered shopper. 

Alliser spat on the hard concrete floor when he looked. “Bloody traitor.”

“You know him?” Jon found that surprising. His old drill sergeant didn’t seem like the type to go in for folk punk.

“He used to be in the Watch before he joined up with the Wildlings.” 

They didn’t talk much after that. Alliser Thorne had no use for the Free Folk, less for traitors, and Jon had long given up trying to be the voice of reason. Thorne took the first shift and Jon found sleep with difficulty so noxious was the order of stale snack foods and mildew. When it was his turn, however, Thorne was out like a light. 

A few hours passed without incident, and then Jon heard shuffling sounds. He tapped the older man on the shoulder. Thorne woke just as quickly as he’d fallen asleep. They rose silently, flame throwers at the ready.

“Fuck,” someone muttered. “They got the Canola.”

Not wights or White Walkers then. Not unless they’d suddenly gained the power of speech and the urge to cook. 

“It’s those bloody kneelers.”

Thorne’s face grew grim. He gave Jon the signal and they moved then. Even in an apocalypse, as men of what was left of the Night’s Watch, they had a duty. Wildlings, Thorne insisted, belonged on the other side of the Wall.

They were going in.

* * *

As Ygritte tried to get the ancient Dodge Ramcharger under control, the younger crow, the one with the black curly hair, turned around and glanced at their compatriots in the back seat.

Tormund and the grizzled one, who even unconscious, seemed to be sneering were both out cold. 

“Is your friend always that pissed off, Crow?”

“He’s not my friend.” He looked again. “And yeah, he is.” 

The adrenaline was still pumping. One minute they’d been fighting each other and the next the wights attacked. It had ceased to matter that the Free Folk had been launching terrorist attacks against the hated crows for millennia or that the Night’s Watch had considered them savage wildings. They both shared one thing in common: they were alive. The wights needed to go down. In the space of an instant, they’d banded together and pretty much set the 7-Eleven and every wight in it on fire. Now they were hurtling well away from White Walker-held territory, uneasy allies for the immediate future.

“I’m Jon Snow.”

“Do I look like I care?” The Ramcharger was drifting in the wrong direction and Ygritte yanked it back. But she registered the name.

Jon was eyeing the other passenger. 

Ygritte risked a glance in the rearview mirror. Tormund was a large man and he had taken up the majority of the bench seat. Somehow he had toppled over with his head in the other crow’s crotch. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jon Snow settling back in his seat somewhat bemused. “Ygritte,” she muttered in a throwaway manner so that he didn’t think she cared.

“That’s your name?”

“Not very smart, are you, crow?”

He grunted. “Probably not. A smart man would be thousands of miles away, somewhere in Dorne, sitting on a beach with a hot chick and a cold drink. If I were smart, I would not be stuck in a forty-year-old Dodge Ramcharger that reeks of stale piss and corn chips with two Wildlings and my old drill sergeant who hates my guts.”

Her lips twitched, but she refused to laugh. He was a kneeler. They might be allies now, but that would change as soon as they reached some place that was safer. Still, she threw him a bone. “That’s Tormund Giantsbane in the back. Who’s your friend?”

“He’s not my friend,” Jon repeated. “He’s Ser Alliser Thorne.”

The Dodge hit a bump and everyone lurched. Tormund and the older crow started groaning as they came to. 

“Get off me, you poncy wildling freak.”

“What the fuck?”

Jon looked like he didn’t know whether to intervene or to laugh. Ygritte couldn’t help it. She felt a grin split across her face, but then he saw, and she forced herself to scowl. 

Meanwhile behind them, the two men were shoving and hitting like two unruly little boys on a long road trip.

“Shit!”

All sounds of skirmish abruptly stopped.

“Everything okay back there?” Jon called.

“There’s no floor,” Tormund yelped. “My foot almost went right through. Ygritte, pull over. Your kneeler boyfriend can sit in the back.”

Ygritte didn’t answer. She inwardly swore as she saw what was ahead of them. 

“I don’t mind,” he offered. “It won’t take that long if you just want to pull over.”

“You know nothing, Jon Snow.” With great effort, Ygritte shifted the car into the next gear. “We’re all staying in the seats we have. Look up ahead.”

Jon obeyed. His jaw dropped.. 

She heard the collective intake of breath from Tormund Giantsbane and Alliser Thorne. 

A mass of wights were marching down the road at them. 

“They must have taken Queenscrown,” Thorne grunted. 

“Turn around,” Jon ordered.

Ygritte reached for the gearshift when Tormund’s voice stopped her. 

“Look in the rearview mirror.”

She did and swore. An equally large number of wights were behind them. 

Jon turned back to the front. “Tell me we took the Canola.”

* * *

They had three things going for them: they all had flame throwers; they had the Canola; and they were not on foot. The Dodge Ramcharger was older than either Lord Snow or the ginger wildling, but it would serve them well enough—if they could fight their way clear.

And although he would never voluntarily admit this, Alliser thought it could have been worse. When it came to guerrilla tactics, the wildlings were experts. But no matter what, it was out of the question for them to go back from where they’d come and the Seven knew what was beyond the mass of wights lumbering inexorably toward them. The pervert wildling and the ginger bitch were arguing about the best way to set up the incendiary device. “Map,” Alliser barked. “We need a map.”

Lord Snow disagreed, but Alliser cuffed him on the head. “Find a bloody map!”

The boy dug through the glove compartment and started throwing them back at him. 

“A map for _this kingdom_ , Snow! We’re not in bloody Rosby or Sunspear!”

Finally he found it: a local map for Queenscrown. Alliser folded it hurriedly and located where he thought they were. At least he hoped it was where they were. “There’s a seasonal road up ahead on the right. If those blue-eyed freaks aren’t on the other side of it, it runs into the highway.”

“It’s winter,” Snow protested. “It might be impassable.”

“You know nothing, Jon Snow. The Ramcharger will make it through.” 

“If we get stuck, Ygritte,” the pervert wildling warned. 

“We can’t go back and who knows what’s past them, Tormund.” She pointed to where the seasonal road was. “There?”

Alliser nodded. 

“All right,” Ygritte decided. “This is what we’re going to do.” She talked rapidly and if Alliser thought what she proposed was risky, it seemed like the only option. He was a soldier and death did not frighten him. Being turned into a walking ice zombie did.

* * *

Tormund didn’t know what speeds the Ramcharger had been capable of making when it was new, but right now, the most Ygritte could eke out of it seemed to be 40 MPH. They were on the seasonal road, but it was more like a track than anything else.

“I think the trees are burning too,” Jon Snow said. 

“Good.” Alliser Thorne, who was still hanging half out the window with his flame thrower called back.

Behind them was a wall of flame, but there was no knowing how many wights there were in these forests or if there were any White Walkers around. 

But the further they drove, the more it seemed like they were somehow, miraculously in the clear. 

The inside of the Ramcharger now smelled like smoke, burnt cooking oil, piss, Frito Lay, and elation.

Thorne finally pulled himself in and rolled up the hand-crank window. “Better not stop till we’re off this thing.”

“I wasn’t planning to, old man.”

When they were off this road, this alliance was going to be over. Ygritte knew it. Tormund knew it and he was damn sure Jon Snow and Alliser Thorne knew it too. But they were all tired, all hungry, and banded together, they were stronger against those fucking ice zombies. None of them were in any hurry to end this temporary peace.

His stomach rumbled. 

In response, Alliser Thorne offered him a choice of Tofurky Jerky or CrackerJacks. “We better conserve the Red Bull.” He pulled the tab on one can and they all took sips. 

As the adrenalin was subsiding, it should have been quieter, but back and forth Ygritte and Jon Snow snarked. Ygritte started bringing up the injustices the Free Folk had suffered. Snow countered with crimes incurred against the communities on the southern side of the wall. She said he threw like a girl. Snow told her he could have made a better fire bomb in his sleep. Ygritte told him he knew nothing repeatedly.

“Why do you keep saying his full name like that?” Thorne wanted to know.

Ygritte and Snow ignored him and kept up their rapid-fire insults. After Snow savagely bit off a piece of Tropical Tie-Dye Fruit Roll-Up, she told him he chewed like a southron cow, and complained about kneeler corporations injecting food with artificial dyes and flavors. 

“Guess you don’t want any then,” Jon said.

“You know nothing, Jon Snow.” And she reached out for the Fruit Roll-Up.

Alliser turned to him. He tried again, “Why does she keep saying that?”

Tormund sighed. He’d been through this before with Ygritte. He leaned over, and holding out his palm for a handful of CrackerJacks, mouthed, “They fancy each other.”

The other man rolled his eyes. “This is going to be a bloody long trip.”

“You know it, Alliser Thorne.”

* * *


	22. The Moonshiner - Stannis, Davos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A revenuer comes across an illegal still in the Stormlands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [prompt](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/106105627827/queenklu-rilee16) was Roaring Twenties/Role Reversal. I took some liberties as this would probably be more like the equivalent of the early 1930s. For [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana), who once again ignored my tacky request and beta read it too.

* * *

The moonshiner stood there like some grim stoic statue, waiting.

In Davos Seaworth’s admittedly limited experience as a revenuer, if the still owner didn’t lie outright and deny all knowledge of the still’s existence, they ran. The man in front of him had done neither. He didn’t look like the typical moonshiner. He was dressed plainly, but the much-mended clothes had once been of good quality, his hands, though red and chafed, were uncalloused, and there was no dirt underneath his fingernails. 

Davos gestured toward the still. “I have to hand it to you, she’s a beauty.”

The moonshiner grunted. 

“All right, Mister . . .”

“Baratheon. Stannis Baratheon.”

Davos got out the axe. He almost hesitated to destroy the still; it was that well-constructed. But he had a duty and it needed to be done. The Hollard Act was very clear on this point. “Step over there, Mr. Baratheon. I wouldn’t want to get anything on your clothes.”

The man moved where Davos had indicated and silently watched as he removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and swung the axe again and again. 

“Right,” Davos said when he was done. “I’m going to have to take you in.”

For the first time, Mr. Baratheon hesitated. “I have a daughter. I am her sole support.” He spoke with quiet dignity, but there was an undertone of something else there. Desperation, perhaps?

Davos was about to reply that this was something Mr. Baratheon should have considered before breaking the law when he heard a twig snap. 

He was in the act of turning when the moonshiner literally fell upon him, propelling them into a copse of trees and causing the both of them to tumble to the ground. “What the—”

Mr. Baratheon clamped his hand over Davos’s lips. He made a minute shake of the head, indicating that they were not alone. The blast of a shotgun confirmed it. From the sound, the bullet had gone straight into a nearby tree. They lay there for what was probably less than twenty seconds and yet felt like eternity, Davos uncomfortably aware of the scent of the other man, soap and spirits and . . . loss. But all too quickly, the moonshiner put a finger to his lips and then rose. 

Davos stayed where he was. He had no sidearm. The axe was a few feet away, but would be little use against a shotgun or rifle. 

“Bloody hell, Baratheon.”

“This is my land, Penrose.”

Penrose, whoever he was, laughed. “You mean the bank’s land.”

“I still pay rent, the same as you. Do you see me in your woods?”

“Sorry,” Penrose said in a gruff voice. “I thought you were that stinking revenuer.”

“No.” There was a pause. “But he was here.”

Davos listened as the gun-toting Penrose gasped, presumably at the damage his axe had caused. 

“You’re lucky you weren’t around when he was wrecking that.”

“I suppose,” Mr. Baratheon admitted. “Has he been at yours yet?”

Their voices were growing fainter, but still Davos lay there. Finally after he judged that about ten minutes had past, he slowly sat up. His back felt damp from lying in the decaying pile of autumn leaves, but clothes could be washed. Bullets were not so easy to fix. 

“He’s gone.”

Davos whirled around. 

Stannis Baratheon stood behind him. “Penrose isn’t a bad sort.”

“He would have killed me.”

The moonshiner shook his head. “He only meant to scare you off. He’s like me. The Crash wiped him out. It was devastating for people in this part of the country. We lost everything. I haven’t been able to find work for months. That still put food on my daughter’s plate and clothes on her back.”

“Your wife?”

“Is not well.” He did not elaborate and it was clear the topic was closed. “May I make sure someone is with my daughter before you arrest me?”

Davos considered what course of action to take. He believed in the rightness of what he was doing. There was a government in place. Laws existed for very good reasons. This man had broken them. There were penalties that should be paid. And yet . . . 

He stared at the blasted trunk of the tree. Another inch and he would have been dead. Davos owed his life to this man. “Go home, Mr. Baratheon.”

“Thank you. It will only take a few minutes.”

“You misunderstand me.” Davos cleared his throat. “Go home to your family.”

The stoicism on Stannis Baratheon’s face melted, to be replaced with something that might have been hope. “Thank you.”

“The debt is paid. Is that clear?”

The moonshiner nodded slowly. 

Davos began to walk away.

“Wait!”

He stopped and looked back. 

“What is your name?”

Davos told him.

Stannis Baratheon repeated the name to himself as if committing it to memory. “You are a good man, Davos Seaworth.”

* * *


	23. Party Politics - Jaime, Brienne, Stannis, Margaery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne find themselves the only two guests without costumes at a masquerade ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From [a Tumblr meme](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/95209634102/send-me-a-ship-and-a-number-and-ill-write-a-short) for [ applesarehappy](http://applesarehappy.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks as usual to [Vana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana) for being an amazing beta, even though I test her dearly by shipping Stannis with people who are not Davos.

* * *

Brienne opened the box the costume shop had sent.

“Uh . . . that’s . . . it’s a dress,” Pod ventured.

“This isn’t what I ordered.” Brienne finished the thing out. It was a pink satin fur-trimmed horror. “They sent the wrong costume.”

Her assistant seemed relieved that she hadn’t chosen this. “I can return it, Mr., er, Ms. Tarth.”

“Just call me Brienne,” she suggested for the hundredth time. “It’s too late. The party is in less than an hour and the store is a good hour away. I’ll just have to go in what I’m wearing.” What she was wearing was a blue button-down shirt, a pair of blue jeans, and boots. “Renly is going to have fits.”

“Tell him you’re dressed as a homicidal maniac,” Pod suggested. “No, seriously, Mr., er, Ms. Brienne. It’s from _The Addams Family_. Wednesday is wearing her regular clothes and someone asks her who she’s supposed to be and she says, ‘I’m a homicidal maniac — they look just like everyone else.’”

She did not dignify that with a response.

* * *

Jaime was filling his gas tank when his phone vibrated. He glanced at the text. It was from Cersei:

_Not going to the costume party after all. Robert and I are going to a movie instead. I told Renly you would attend._

It didn’t matter what his sister had told Renly. Jaime was damned if he was going. It was a costume party. No one would miss him. 

He was getting into his car to go home when his phone rang. He glanced at the display, but the number wasn’t familiar to him.

“Ah, Jaime.”

“Father. Whose number is this?”

“The cleaning woman’s. I borrowed her phone. You never seem to pick up when I use my own.”

Jaime closed his eyes. 

“Cersei informs me she and Robert cannot possibly attend this gathering of Renly Baratheon’s. Some nonsense about staying away from events with alcohol.”

“Father, they’re recovering alcoholics. It’s not non— yes, what about it?”

“I need you to make an appearance. The Tyrells seem to be under the delusion that they can defy me. They are entirely too cozy with Renly and Stannis. I’ve heard reports that Margaery Tyrell is dating—”

Jaime interrupted. “Renly is gay. He openly lives with Loras. I think they’re talking about marrying in Dorne now that it's legal there.”

Father went on as if he hadn’t spoken, “—Stannis Baratheon, at-large candidate for the Senate. He could threaten our interests. Put an end to the relationship.”

“Margaery Tyrell and Stannis Baratheon are close? Margaery? Flirts with everything that moves, wears dresses that show off half her tits? With Stannis who probably wears sock suspenders to bed? Stannis who doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t—”

“—Yes. They are seeing one another. Put an end to it.”

“How exactly?”

“Do I need to draw you a map? She’ll drop him like he’s on fire for a chance with a Lannister.”

Jaime pursed his lips. “If Robert and Cersei had gone, what were they supposed to have done? Tried to seduce her into a threesome?”

He got a dial tone in response.

* * *

Loras and Renly’s guests had thoroughly embraced the medieval theme. Jaime felt distinctly out of place as he stepped into the ballroom. Even the décor had been done to a T. The exit signs, the bar, and the waitstaff uniforms were the only discordant notes. Everywhere Jaime looked, he saw people in armor, flowing robes, or gowns. Jesters tumbled and juggled and here and there actors came up and attempted to converse with him in period dialogue.

It therefore took him a while to locate Stannis. Robert’s middle brother had a crowd about him wherever he moved and from the things Jaime was overhearing, he thought his father was right to be concerned. 

Stannis should have looked ridiculous in his costume, but somehow the boiled leather armor and the metalwork gave him an air of authority, of command, of purpose. 

Margaery hung on his arm, often quite literally, and she was the very image of the supportive and adoring partner. Her gown was restrained for her, but it still exposed more than enough of her creamy skin.

“Margaery, this costume is very uncomfortable and I clank.”

She had her arm entwined around the crook of Stannis’ elbow. “All the men are clanking. Some of the women too.”

It was true. Most of the men and quite a few of the women had opted to don armor. Jaime inched forward.

“Besides, it suits you. Oh, look, there are the Tarlys. We should go and say hello.” 

Jaime wondered at her. Stannis stood no chance with Randyll and Melessa Tarly. The former’s politics were the polar opposite of Stannis Baratheon’s and the latter was his ex-wife’s first cousin, and thus ill-disposed to him. But as he came closer and overheard Margaery’s seemingly idle chitchat, she somehow made it seem like they were all friends together and that Stannis was the only man to back. 

He nearly reached them and then Margaery was propelling Stannis over to a crowd of Crakehalls and Westerlings. It was a foolish move. They were all firmly in Father’s camp. 

It was a repeat of her performance with the Tarlys. She exchanged air kisses and exclaimed over costumes. Stannis nodded stiffly and again looked positively lordly. 

Jaime pushed forward and half smirked as he was greeted warmly by his father’s supporters. 

“How did you get out of having to wear a costume?” Raynald Westerling demanded.

He grinned and said something about last-minute changes in plans. There wasn’t a man here wouldn’t kill to be sensibly dressed right now.

“It’s too bad you weren’t able to accommodate yourself to the spirit of the event,” Margaery murmured. “Why, look at Harys Swyft.”

“I’d rather not.” But as he said it, he saw some of the Crakehalls frowning. 

Margaery gave the object of discussion an approving look. “I heard him say there had been difficulty with his costume, and yet he adapted splendidly. Doesn’t he look handsome?”

Handsome was a generous term for it, but several people echoed approval of the aforementioned Harys Swyft.

Over the next few minutes, Margaery continued to exclaim over all the costumes the group around them had rented or constructed. And somehow without directly saying so, she managed to intimate that it was unfortunate that Jaime wasn’t willing to enter the spirit of fun like they all were. They had all made the effort and underwent the expense and inconvenience. People who wouldn’t bend, she murmured . . .

“I didn’t know I was going to attend until—”

Those in the pro-Lannister faction were nodding with approval as Margaery expanded her thesis: here was Stannis, a serious man who knew his priorities, but who also knew when to compromise, when to join in, when to make the sacrifice of his personal comfort for the sake of the larger group.

Jaime blinked and looked at Stannis, who had a reputation for being as rigid as iron. Stannis seemed equally startled. 

Father was right to be worried. Margaery was a pro at this. 

He tried three more times and with each attempt, she managed to turn his snark into one more reason to support Stannis. Jaime decided he should retreat and regroup before _he_ started to think that Stannis Baratheon was the best candidate for senator.

* * *

Brienne clutched her cup of hippocras, which had seemed like the least offensive of the choices the caterers were offering. She had three times attempted to make her way through the mass of medieval-clad guests to get something sane like a ginger ale or a club soda, but finally given it up as a lost cause and settled for hanging out in the back of the room with the few others who also seemed slightly overwhelmed at the authenticity of the party. The moment they’d started up with the courtly dances, at least one man had marched determinedly toward the shadows, dragging his partner with him.

“But it looks like so much fun,” she was protesting. 

“No.” 

They made a strange pair, Brienne thought. The woman was practically bursting out of her dress made of a shade of pink not unlike the one that had arrived for Brienne by mistake, but she looked perfectly at home in the flowing gown. Her escort also fit with the theme, but in a much darker way. Unlike Loras, whose armor shone with such brightness that Brienne could see her reflection in it, this man looked like he’d just come off the battlefield, having brutally cut down a dozen enemies.

He was probably a tax attorney or something, Brienne conjectured. His plump date pouted, but turned her attention to the dancers.

“Ah, there you are!” a tall blond god of a man in an open-necked green plaid shirt and khaki trousers pronounced loudly. He came and stood next to Brienne, grinning like she was the one person he wanted to see here. “You _are_ a guest, right?” he asked in an undertone. “You’re not a dockworker on your break?”

The couple, who had been ignoring her, now turned and inspected her. 

“Of course, I’m a guest. Who are you?”

“Shhhh.”

Brienne wondered how much he’d had to drink. Had he opted for that brilliantly red drink called the Mad Targaryen? Or was the hippocras more lethal than it appeared? She eyed her own cocktail suspiciously.

“What are you supposed to be? A lumberjack?”

“‘I’m a homicidal maniac — they look just like everyone else.’”

The grim-faced man nodded as if she’d said something incredibly wise. Brienne would like to think he was a film buff, but he didn’t seem like the type. 

The tall obnoxious blond man didn’t get it. 

Only the plump woman laughed. 

“It’s from a movie,” Brienne explained wearily. “I had a costume, but they sent the wrong one and there was no way I was going to wear what they sent.” She started to move away when he grabbed her arm. Brienne stared at him evenly. “Let me go or lose that hand.”

He released her, but inched even closer. 

She was about to find another corner in which to hide when she saw Renly’s older brother and Margaery Tyrell coming toward them. Brienne had met Margaery on three occasions. The first had been when Renly and Margaery had been “dating.” She’d had the feeling she’d scarcely registered on Margaery’s radar at the time, but Brienne had also been deluded enough to think Renly was straight so she supposed her perceptions were clouded, because on the second occasion, Margaery had been so forward with her that Brienne had almost thought the woman was interested in her. And then most recently she’d met her again at a brunch at Loras and Renly’s and Margaery had been earnestly talking to a shy redhead in the corner. Brienne wasn’t very good at following fashion trends, but it struck her that every single time Margaery had been sporting a new look. 

To say that Brienne knew Stannis wouldn’t be correct either. She didn’t think she’d exchanged more than a few words with him, but she’d been around often enough when he and Renly were arguing about one thing or another. Stannis was one of the candidates for the Senate, but she doubted he’d get elected. He was less than likeable and he was so rigid his rivals joked he might as well be dead. 

“I will give you five hundred dragons—” he began.

“—I am not a sex worker—”

“—if you disagree with everything that woman says,” he finished. “Tell you what. I’ll donate the money to any cause you want.”

Before she could reply, Stannis and Margaery were on them. 

Margaery did that weird air-kissing thing that so many women seemed to go in for. “I didn’t know you and Jaime Lannister knew each other!”

“Years now,” the man lied smoothly. 

“Brienne, you sly thing!”

Stannis leaned forward to shake her hand and clanked. He glanced down at his armor and sighed. 

“No costume?”

“It got—”

Jaime Lannister jumped in, “Brienne is in costume.”

“As what?” Stannis demanded.

“‘I’m a homicidal maniac—they look just like everyone else.’” It sounded more pathetic every time she said it. 

Margaery didn’t seem to know how to respond at first, but then laughed and congratulated Brienne on her cleverness.

“The place I ordered my costume from messed up the order,” Brienne explained wearily. There was an opening in the crowd thronging around the bar now, but with Jaime on the one side, Margaery and Stannis in front of her, and the weird couple on her left, there was no way she could escape. 

“It’s the attempt that’s important,” Margaery announced. She eyed the grim-faced man and the plump woman, smiled warmly, and suddenly they were all chatting. Or rather, Margaery was extolling the virtues of hard work, effort, and stick-to-itiveness that were all present in the person of Stannis Baratheon. And after learning from the guest in boiled leather that he was from the North, Margaery began speaking of values—northern values. 

Jaime Lannister snorted. “Your boyfriend has never been north of the Neck, Margaery.”

“I never said otherwise,” Stannis objected. 

The grim-looking man stared at the dancers, who were now earnestly engaged in some complicated movements punctuated with periodic bows and curtsies, and then back at Margaery and Stannis and made his choice. “Walda.”

Walda grinned and allowed him to drag her to the dance floor. 

“You can cut the act, Margaery. There’s no one here left to impress.”

Brienne saw Margaery turn to her. “I already cast my absentee ballot for—” 

“See,” Jaime Lannister smirked. 

“Are you always such a second-class jackass?” Margaery inquired while flashing him such a brilliant smile that Brienne suspected anyone watching them would think they were all the best of friends.

“I’m a Lannister. We would never dream of being second class at anything.”

“As I was saying, I voted for Catelyn Tully Stark,” Brienne finished. There. Now she could escape. “Excuse me, please.”

She pushed forward toward the bar, ditched the hippocras, and ordered a club soda with lime. After receiving her drink, she turned, only to see Jaime Lannister standing in front of her, five one-hundred-dragon notes folded over in his palm.

“It would have been even better if you said you were going to vote for Addam Marbrand, but it was worth every copper star to see the look on Margaery Tyrell’s face.”

Brienne stared at the money. 

He pushed it into her hand. “This party is a lost cause. Father will have fits, but there’s nothing I can do about Margaery,” he told her as if what he was saying was perfectly understandable. “Hey, I caught a look at the food they’re bringing out. Hummingbird tongues,” Jaime said with a shudder. “And pigeon pie, because no formal function is complete without bird shit all over the ballroom floor.”

In spite of herself, Brienne smiled. 

“Look, since I made it seem like we’re a couple, we should probably leave together. There’s a pub down the road that is supposed to have really great burgers and fresh-cut fries.” He gestured at one of the entertainers bearing down on them. “Hopefully devoid of fools in motley and idiots who say ‘prithee, nuncle, I pray thee stay.’”

Brienne’s lips twitched again.

“And maybe I can persuade you to vote for Addam instead of that self-righteous do-gooder.”

“I already voted and Catelyn is not—” she began, but he was busy looking up the name and address of the pub. 

“Here we go,” Jaime said brightly as he clumsily texted the address to her. “Meet you there.”

Brienne got into her car and stared at the fistful of money she still held clenched in her fist. She opened up her briefcase and was fishing out some materials when her phone rang. “Oh, hi, Catelyn. I’m just leaving the party.” She found a pen and the receipt book. “Stannis was . . .” How did she phrase this? Brienne was not that good with the subtleties of politics; she never had been, but she believed in what Catelyn wanted to do for Westeros. “Margaery Tyrell,” Brienne began. “Oh, you’ve already heard. Yeah.”

Someone honked their horn and she looked up to see Jaime Lannister waving as he drove on ahead. 

“It wasn’t a total loss, though.”

* * *

Jaime was beginning to think that Brienne the tall blonde had decided not to come, when she slid into the booth. He felt absurdly relieved that she was finally there, which was stupid. She was just somebody running away from the same party he was.

“Sorry, my boss called.”

He gestured around the pub. “See? As I promised, mercifully free of gavottes and knights in armor. I ordered you a club soda. I hope that’s all right.”

“Thanks.”

An ad for Catelyn Stark’s campaign flashed onto the television over the dark walnut bar. He groaned. “If it’s not Stannis, it’s that self-righteous Stark woman. For some reason, Father thinks she’s almost as much a threat as Stannis, but no one in his or her right mind would support her.”

Brienne squeezed the lime wedge into her drink, wiped her hands on the napkin, and slid an envelope across to him. “If you give me your address, I’ll see that you get a proper letter thanking you. If you don’t want to do that, I put the receipt in there for your records. It won’t be tax deductible, I’m afraid.”

He slit it open and stared at the paper. “What?”

“You did say you would donate the money to the cause of my choice.”

“You work for Catelyn Stark.”

“For her campaign,” Brienne corrected. “I’m just a supporter—they look just like everyone else,” she said with the merest trace of a smile.

Gods help him if anyone ever found out that _the_ Jaime Lannister had made a campaign contribution to his father’s candidate’s rival.

“Or,” Brienne went on very quietly, “you can take your money back and we can start over.” She counted out the five one-hundred dragon notes and placed them in front of him and tore up the receipt. “Hi, I’m Brienne Tarth, righteous do-gooder, totally out of her mind.”

Jaime looked at her very earnest face and into her very blue eyes and came to a decision. “I’m Jaime Lannister, first-class jackass.”

* * *


	24. Context - Renly and Robert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Renly and Robert realize they don’t know Stannis as well as they think they do.

* * *

Renly hadn’t meant to be looking at his brother’s phone. He had simply confused it for his own. But now he stared at the text on the phone—the phone that belonged to Stannis: _I need ecstasy. And, before you ask, the answer is yes right now_.

“What’s wrong?” Robert demanded. “Your face is whiter than milk.”

Renly reread the text and registered the name attached to it. “Stannis is dealing drugs? To Asha Greyjoy?”

Robert roared with laughter. It would have been a more majestic sight had he not begun to wheeze at the end. 

Another text came in: _I’ve been thinking about it all day. Where the hell are you? You owe me after what I did for you._

“Robert, I’m not joking. He’s . . . he’s dealing drugs.” 

“Stannis? Are you mad? Give me that.” Robert wrestled for the phone. In the old days there would have been no contest, but years of overeating and liquor had made him slower. Renly held it out of reach, which turned out to be a mistake when his eldest brother simply used his massive bulk to push Renly onto the sofa. 

Robert began to lose his balance and Renly moved over just in time to avoid being pressed to death. “Here.” In defeat, he held it out.

“This can’t be,” Robert said after a moment. “He drinks nothing but that bloody lemon water.”

“He doesn’t need to be using to be dealing.”

“Stannis? Stannis? Our brother, who won’t even jaywalk?”

As if in response, there was now a third text. _Wait. Fuck, that’s right. I haven’t paid you back. Hang on a sec._

They both stared at each other. 

Renly thought about an article he’d read about a seemingly straitlaced septon who had been dealing coke to a youth group. And then he remembered a news report about a Rosby stay-at-home-mom who had been running weed from Essos to her upper middle class neighborhood. “Could he have gone off the rails after Selyse left him?” he ventured. 

_Would you get here any sooner if I told you that Davos is up for it?_

Robert rubbed the back of his neck. “That bloody smuggler.”

“What smuggler?”

“The one who’s missing half his fingers.”

Renly never paid that much attention to Stannis’ friends, but missing digits was a pretty memorable feature. “I thought he did custom carpentry on boats.”

Robert snorted, but he sobered up fast. “Do we do one of those intervention things?”

“That’s for addicts.”

“Well, we have to talk sense into him somehow.”

_Where the fuck are you? I need you to fill me up with your great big cock RIGHT NOW._

Robert was so startled he yelped and dropped the phone onto the coffee table like it was a pit viper that might attack them at any second. 

Renly was trying to wrap his brain around this new information when Stannis walked in.

“Oh. There it is. I was looking for that.” Stannis picked up the phone while Robert and Renly tried to rearrange their features into expressions of boredom. Stannis straightened up immediately as he read the texts, glanced at them suspiciously, and then apparently satisfied of their ignorance, tightened the already perfect knot of his tie, and strode out of the room again, pecking away at the phone laboriously.

“Seven bloody hells,” Robert whispered when it was safe to do so.

“We are going to forget we ever saw those texts,” Renly suggested as unwanted images of the boat carpenter, Stannis, and Asha Greyjoy “paying each other back” as it were flooded into his brain.

“What texts?”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [shadowsfan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsfan/pseuds/shadowsfan) who [prompted](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/114355436127/fic-meme-texts-from-last-night) me with, Stannis/Asha Text 949: I need ecstasy. And, before you ask, the answer is yes right now


	25. Jell-O Shots - Tywin and Olenna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tywin meets with Olenna to discuss mergers personal and corporate

“Are all of you Lannisters this rude?”

Tywin glanced up from the text. It had been sent to him in error, but his mind kept turning back to it. “Meaning?”

“Meaning you have been busy reading your papers for the past five minutes and now you’re fiddling with your cellphone like it contains the cure to cancer. You’re the one who summoned me to this meeting. My time is as valuable as yours.”

“I doubt that very much,” he said as he reread the text. 

Olenna Tyrell tapped her fingers against the arm of the chair. She was in the act of rising from her seat when he pushed his smartphone over to her. 

“Read that.”

She held the phone out and read the text aloud: “‘It was dumb but not something to force me into sobriety.’ _That’s_ what you called me to discuss?”

“No, but I’d value your opinion.”

Olenna snorted. “Do you obsess over the contents of fortune cookies too?” 

“What are you doing?”

She sounded out the words as she tapped and swiped them out with enviable speed, “Sorry, your text cut off. What did you do this time?”

“You know who sent this text?”

“Of course not, but since you want an answer—ah, here we are. ‘She had such a cute bum. I couldn’t help myself.’ Now this begs the question, Tywin, who among your august acquaintance refers to the backsides of their—oh, wait, there’s more, ‘it was amazing,’” Olenna smirked. “Your mysterious texter uses three exclamation points here so I think we can conclude that the owner of the cute bum knows what she is doing between the sheets.”

Tywin slapped a file in front of her. “Your grandson, my daughter.” The file outlined the stock splits, the proposed merger. 

“What is this? 300 AC?” Olenna rolled her eyes. “Willas is far too good for your alcoholic daughter. Your grandson is engaged to my Margaery. That should be enough for you.”

He refused to rise to the bait. Tywin wanted Cersei settled and out of what was left of his hair and Willas Tyrell was the best available option. 

Olenna continued to ignore him and read aloud, “‘Is it my fault that I did 5 Jello shots?’ Are we certain this isn’t Cersei? Although, no, she’s probably switched to straight vodka at this point. Willas is looking for something a little less . . . used . . . in a woman.” When he didn’t respond to this intolerable insult, she read the next text, “‘I can’t go through with the wedding. Not now that I’ve met THE ONE.’ Such hyperbole. The young are so prone to it.” She slid the phone back to him.

Tywin retrieved the phone and was about to lower the hammer with some recently acquired knowledge that would bring her to heel when another text came through. Tywin cleared his throat. 

“Well, I shall leave you to your inebriated gelatin shot-imbibing mystery texter. I have things to do.”

Tywin seldom smiled—he found very little in the world to smile about—but as he read the text, his lips quirked upward. “Allow me to read this one last communication to you, Olenna. ‘Loras, what in the Seven Hells do I tell Gran?’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For an anon on this meme who [prompted](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/114355436127/fic-meme-texts-from-last-night) (219) It was dumb but not something to force me into sobriety - Olenna/Tywin, please?


	26. Hold the Leeches - Gendry, Hot Pie, Team Dragonstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gendry delivers pizza to Dragonstone and gets more than he bargained for.

“GENDRY!”

Gendry slowly looked up from the scrap of paper at his business partner. “Huh?”

It took a lot for Hot Pie to lose his cool, but this was their actual livelihood. One bad review on Yelp and all their cred as having the best pizza on the island would be out the window. They had been shorthanded tonight and Gendry had been pitching in with the deliveries. 

“We’re backed up. You have to move!”

Gendry returned his gaze to the piece of paper. “A hot chick gave this to me.”

Hot Pie snatched it out of his friend’s hands. “You can call her later. Right now you have orders to deliver.”

Gendry did not seem to understand the urgency. “It was the order for Dragonstone. You know, that big old spooky house.”

Everyone knew Dragonstone. That was beside the point. “Gendry. Orders. Now.”

“I get there with the Klatchian Hots without anchovies.”

Hot Pie, who had been this close to physically pushing his partner out the door, paused. Was this a customer service issue? “Was it the wrong order? Was there something wrong with it?” 

Gendry shook his head. “This guy who’s missing like four fingers on his left hand shows me in. I tried to give the pie to him, but he said no, I was supposed to come upstairs. He didn’t seem happy about it. He takes me into this room and there’s like this ginger chick dressed all in red and she’s got like a hundred candles lit everywhere. There’s another woman, not as hot, but not bad—I’d still call her a MILF—and there’s this other man is standing across the room with his arms crossed and he’s glaring at me.”

Hot Pie was consulting the order on the computer. “They specified the gluten free crust. I know I made sure it was—”

“—and then the redhead rips off her dress. Hot Pie, her tits.” Gendry shook his head as if to try and snap himself out of it. “And there’s like this bed and a sort of brazier and then I see this bowl and it’s got leeches in it. She starts coming toward me and I could barely breathe.”

“Leeches? Like that weird guy we worked for back in Harren—”

“Then the man who showed me in clears his throat and says ‘I don’t have anything smaller than a $50.’” Gendry took a deep breath.

Despite himself and the sense that their business was going to tank in the next few minutes, Hot Pie couldn’t resist asking, “And? And?”

“The grim-faced guy opens his wallet and says he forgot to go to the bank. And the ginger says it’s immaterial, which makes the grim guy really annoyed. They ordered the food. They need to pay for it.”

This was a sentiment Hot Pie could applaud. 

“So then he sees a purse behind the brazier and starts going through it, complaining about what a mess it is, wondering how the ginger can ever find anything. He dumps everything out on the bed. And then she gets pissed because it’s her stuff and he should have just asked, but she doesn’t have any cash either. And then finally the other woman sighs and says they’ll have to borrow it from Shireen.”

“Who’s Shireen?”

“No clue. I think it must have been a kid because she came back with a red piggy bank and emptied it. They ended up paying me in change.” Gendry reached into his pockets and plopped a Ziploc baggy filled with copper stars and silver stags onto the counter. “Are those the orders?” He began placing pizza boxes into his insulated delivery bag. “I guess that killed the mood because they all started arguing. The redhead didn’t think I needed to be paid. The first guy didn’t want me there at all. He said this was not what he signed up for and then the second woman and man were arguing about this Shireen and how had the kid saved up all this money. The redhead was pissed about her favorite lipstick.”

Hot Pie was torn between hearing the rest of the story and seeing their business go down the drain, but couldn’t resist asking. “Her lipstick?”

“I guess it fell out when he dumped the stuff everywhere and the top came off. She said it was a discontinued color and then the first man snarked that maybe her god could make more for her. Finally, he handed me the money and practically pushed me out the door. I was getting in the car wondering what in the seven hells I had walked into when the second woman—”

“—The redhead?”

“No, not the ginger. But like I said, not that bad, she hands me this piece of paper and smiles and says, “‘Call me.’” 

Hot Pie glanced down at the piece of paper. “Wow.”

“Shit, these are gonna be late if I don’t hustle. Can I have that back?”

“You’re going to go back to the spooky house and the people with the leeches?”

Gendry zipped up the bag. “I told her I’d call only if it was just her and if she would hold the leeches. She said that wouldn't be a problem at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [aunt_zelda](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda) from a Tumblr prompt that inspired me: "“im a pizza delivery person and i just delivered a pizza to someone in the middle of a satanic ritual and they gave me their number???” au"
> 
> I know they're not satanists, but it was the best I could do :D


	27. Drift Away - Genna Lannister, Brynden Tully

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A widowed Genna Lannister ends up in a pub in Riverrun and encounters Brynden Tully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Tumblr prompt was: meeting at a party whilst drunk au - Genna Lannister and Brynden Tully - I changed it a bit.

Genna pulls back on the cue and then knocks yet another ball into a pocket to her new friends’ applause. 

Far from being annoyed that a mere woman has hustled him, Brynden roars with laughter. He shakes his head. “Serves me right for playing with strangers.” He sets one crutch against the pub wall and leans carefully so as not to lose his balance while he pulls out a weathered brown leather wallet and fishes out five ten dragon bills for her. 

They both pound back another shot of bourbon (Fourth? Fifth? Genna has lost count)

This is the most fun she’s had in eight months. 

Knowing full well that he is not at all interested in her, she nonetheless cannot resist flirting with him. “I could give you a chance to win that back.” It has been years since she’s tried being kittenish with anyone, but it is what the situation calls for. 

The laughter turns suggestive, but he seems to sense that her intent is merely playful and he responds in kind. 

Brynden wins on the break and now Genna realizes he’s far better than she’s given him credit for. 

Someone calls out that the Dornish-rules Football Championships are on and their audience diminishes. 

“If you want to go watch the game,” she offers. 

“Never cared much for it. Now baseball . . .”

“Emmon—my late husband--he liked baseball too,” she says and then regrets it. For thirty years, she stayed married to a man she thought she was largely indifferent to, and then in the last six months, three weeks, and five days, Genna came to realize that Emmon Frey did matter to her after all.

Brynden hobbles over to the other side of the pool table. “Heart?”

“Pancreatic cancer.”

He looks up at her, his bright blue eyes piercing into her green ones. 

_Please don’t say you’re sorry._

He grunts and holding the cue in his hand, hesitates.

_Or throw the game. It’s not sympathy I need. It’s not pity . . . it’s . . ._

Brynden Tully has neither for her. He knocks ball after ball into pocket after pocket. And when he’s done, he takes back his five ten dragon notes and folds them back into his wallet. 

A cheer goes up, but it has nothing to do with either of them. 

Her cell phone goes off. Genna glances down. It is Tywin. She assumes he’s calling to tell her that he’s arrived at the Riverrun Holiday Inn Express. He will be eloquent about its many shortcomings and about how he hopes she’s finished clearing up the business of what passed for Emmon’s estate. She can handle all of that.

But Tywin will have things to say about Emmon too. It shouldn’t hurt. She has heard it all before. She has said some of it before. But now it is different.

Genna lets the call go to voicemail.

Brynden gestures to the back of the pub with its tiny dance floor. “Care for a spin?”

“Your leg. Your crutches.”

But he’s already hobbled over to the juke box and is dropping silver stags into the slot. 

They must make for an odd pair, she thinks, as they lean on each other and shuffle slowly to the strains of Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away.” A gay man. A grieving widow. It should feel awkward. They are decidedly ungainly, not at all sober, and probably utterly ridiculous to anyone watching. 

But as they lose themselves to the song, it hurts . . . less.


	28. Performance Anxiety - Roose, Walda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walda persuades Roose to house sit for her sister, Amerei.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [crossingwinter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter).

* * *

“It’s only for a few days,” Walda said. “It will help Ami out if we housesit for her.” Roose must not have kept his features neutral enough because Walda went on, “Besides all the hotels are booked solid.”

And given the delicate and time-sensitive nature of his business in Darry, they would have no other choice. He sighed. “Fine.”

Walda snuggled next to him.

“But we’re bringing our own linens.”

* * *

Clean sheets turned out to be the least of their concerns.

Walda had known her sister was somewhat free spirited when it came to matters of the heart, but it was something of a shock, even to her, to realize just how free spirited Ami was.

But Amerei was her sister and family came first, and they were only there for a little while.

“It was a nice gesture,” Walda told Roose when they came across the economy-sized box of condoms left out on the bed with a note that they should feel free to use as many as they needed.

When they found the sex manuals on the coffee table that Ami had thoughtfully annotated for their pleasure, Walda thought Roose might actually have an aneurysm.

“Have you been talking to her about our sex life?” he demanded.

“No!”

Roose seemed unconvinced. “I’ve always been willing to try anything you’ve wanted to—”

“—It’s just her way.”

She’d had to do a lot of cuddling to get him to calm down.

That wasn’t the final indignity, though.

* * *

It wasn’t enough that Roose was forced to sleep in a bed that probably saw more traffic in a year than most career prostitutes experienced in a lifetime, or that the place reminded him of a brothel, no, they had to take care of Amerei’s cats too.

Roose had not even known his sister-in-law owned cats.

Roose did not like animals. He never had. Contrary to what various health professionals had conjectured during his K-12 years, he had never harmed any, but still he did not care for them.

“It’s not so bad,” Walda said, ever the optimist. “We just need to put out food and water every day and clean out the litter box. And I can do all of that.”

She kept to her promise. Roose could not fault her. She did all the things on the extraordinarily detailed list Amerei had left concerning the care of: Mr. Fluffers, Snuggles, and Meowington. She set their food out on the specific china Amerei had dictated (the woman ate off paper plates, but her pets dined from Myrish porcelain). Walda dispensed medicine. She brushed them. She even tried to play with them. They tolerated her.

Him, they followed like he was their sworn liege lord.

Walda kept laughing. “It’s cute.”

“No.”

“Roose, if you could just see—”

“—No.”

But she must have sensed that he was on the edge of exploding, because on their last night, Walda went out of her way to cater to him. He weakened when he saw her in her new pink nightie. Agreeing to this debacle had made his wife happy, and even though it always baffled him to realize it, Roose did want to make Walda happy. He reached for her.

* * *

“YES! That! Roosie, don’t stop!”

Walda knew very well that Roose would not stop, but he liked it when she talked during sex. In fact, Walda had noticed that the louder she got, the more he liked it.

“YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” Walda was nearly there when she saw them: Mr. Fluffers, Snuggles, and Meowington. They all sat on their hindquarters facing the bed, cocking their heads as if they were baffled by what they were seeing.

Roose did not appear to have noticed even though he was taking her from behind. “Tell me how much you want me,” he coaxed when she fell silent.

It was absurd, but it felt like they had an audience, and as uninhibited as Walda was, she did not hold with voyeurism. “The cats.”

“What? Oh.” He paused for the briefest of moments and then kept thrusting. “Are you close?”

Walda tried to focus, but still Ami’s cats stared.

“Forget about the wretched creatures. Walda, tell me you need me.”

“They’re watching us,” she whispered.

“Who is watching us?”

Walda started to pull away. “The cats,” she hissed for the second time.

And then not content with watching them, first Snuggles and then her brothers, Mr. Fluffers and Meowington jumped up onto the bed.

“Off, get off,” she hissed.

“Walda.”

“Not you! The cats! Roose, do something. I don’t want them watching us.”

Snuggles padded around them and purred hopefully up at Roose. Not to be outdone, Meowington did the same, only to be followed by Mr. Fluffers.

Then Roose, Roose, her husband who had been nothing but crabby ever since they’d set foot in Ami’s apartment; who had been utterly horrified to learn that they’d be pet sitting too, Roose began to laugh.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A heartfelt thank you to [MotherofFirkins](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherofFirkins/pseuds/MotherofFirkins) who came up with the cat names for me.


	29. Human Subject Testing -Jaime/Brienne, Tyrion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion and Jaime Lannister have a proposal for Brienne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this [Tumblr post.](http://valorfaerie.tumblr.com/post/140424455849/lesbianrey-looks-like-the-perfect-opportunity)
> 
> Usual thanks to Vana for the quick beta.

* * *

“You look like a fish with your mouth hanging open like that.”

Brienne felt this wasn’t fair at all. The only reason she was still listening to this strange man was because he was Tyrion’s brother and because she was boxed in by him and ultimately because she couldn’t quite believe this conversation was even happening.

“A very ugly fish.”

“Jaime, you aren’t presenting this very well,” Tyrion said.

Brienne tried to focus on the flyer they had placed in front of her. It was a simple 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper with the basics of the announcement on the top two thirds. The bottom third had been cut so that interested parties could simply tear off the phone number and leave the main part of the text there for other people. For six years now (four years of undergrad and two of her PhD program) she’d probably walked by hundreds, no, make that thousands of the things. Most of them were advertisements for roommates, apartments, used cars, tutoring lessons, and in this case a research experiment. 

**Paid Research Opportunity**  
**Romantic Couples Study**  
**_You and your partner_** are eligible to participate if you:

  * Are in a committed, monogamous relationship
  * Have been dating for at least six months
  * Are currently living together
  * Are both over the age of 18



“Look, she’s not interested. This is never going to work,” Jaime Lannister said to his brother.

Tyrion rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Jaime. Just let me do the talking.”

“No one is going to buy the two of us as a couple.”

“Wait, what? You want me to pose as—”

Tyrion held up a hand and began to talk. They were indeed suggesting that she and Jaime enter the research experiment under the guise of two people in a serious relationship. 

“Why?”

Jaime shrugged. “Money.”

Brienne consulted the flyer again. “It’s five hundred dragons total for six months’ participation. Total.”

Tyrion reached into his black leather laptop bag and gave her a sheaf of other papers. 

They were all for other research studies. Some of them were for individual experiments. Some were for pharmaceutical studies. There were several other social sciences studies for couples. “You’re hiring yourself out as a human research subject—for a living? Aren’t you a Lannister?”

“I am.”

“But you’re . . . why would you ever do this?”

“Father cut us off,” Tyrion said. His manner suggested that this explained everything.

Brienne continued to leaf through the various sheets. “But you have a job.”

Tyrion shrugged. “I’m a TA.”

Left unsaid was that his position was in a department with little funding and that he was significantly older than most of his peers. Her eyes darted around his tiny office. There in the corner was a laundry bag. Over there on top of a three-drawer filing cabinet was an illegal hot plate. Neatly folded on top of the ancient loveseat was a blanket, rather thicker and nicer than was the norm. “You’re living here? Both of you?” She looked at Tyrion’s brother. “You’re not even a student!”

“I’m living in my library study carrel,” Tyrion corrected. “Jaime’s living in the office.”

“Most people would just go out and find a job.” It was impossible to keep the incredulity out of her voice. “Don’t you have any other family who would let you stay with them?”

Tyrion shrugged. “Father’s support of them is contingent on them not supporting us.”

“So you’re just going to become human lab rats—”

Jaime crossed his arms. “—Lab rat, singular. And it’s only for a few months until—”

Tyrion held up his hands again and explained the situation. Not only had their father cut the two of them off, albeit for different, unexpressed reasons, but he had taken the extra step of purchasing the buildings where the two of them had rented apartments and evicted them. Moreover, he had been busily making it clear to any company who might consider hiring Jaime that to do so would be most unwise. “Father cares a lot about the Lannister name,” Tyrion said. “The minute he finds out that Jaime is making a living as a research subject, he’ll relent. In the meantime, I go back to sleeping in relative comfort on that thing.” He pointed to the ratty loveseat. “And then we can pay you back.”

In exchange for her letting Jaime stay in her apartment and posing as his girlfriend in public and for this study, they were both prepared to pay her quite handsomely once they had been reinstated in their father’s good graces. 

The figure they proposed would more than sustain her after her own funding package ran out. It would keep her going if she couldn’t find a posting immediately after graduation—and if she did, it would pay off a nice chunk of her student loans. 

“No one is going to believe that she and I have been living together, let alone dating for six months, Tyrion.”

“No one is going to believe that you’re letting some pharmaceutical company inject you with drugs for the cash either.” Tyrion turned back to Brienne. “I know this sounds demented, but it would really mean a lot to me if you would consider it. We’re good for the money. A Lannister always pays his debts.”

Brienne thought of how little she was likely to be earning once she got her doctorate and how helpful Tyrion had been to her. “How long would we have to do this?”

Tyrion thought two or three months at the maximum. 

“Tyrion, look at her. No one is—”

“—going to believe that a kind, sweet woman like Brienne would date you? Yes, that is a risk, but with some coaching and practice, I am confident that we can pull it off. You might even learn to like each other. Who knows? Think what a story it would make to tell your children.”

Both Jaime and Brienne snorted at exactly the same time.

* * *

They dined out on the story for years. 


	30. Bay Rum - Barbrey

The sun streaming in through the motel window woke Barbrey. She felt Brandon’s stubble against the nape of her neck and his hard on against her back and smiled. Even now the fading notes of his bay rum aftershave were detectable. “Again? Gods, you’re insatiable.” 

_Bay rum aftershave_

_Stubble_

_Motel_

Brandon only ever smelled of Head and Shoulders, was possessed of a full beard, and would never have bothered paying for a room—they fucked whenever and wherever they pleased.

She turned and faced Ned Stark.

The look of horror on his face matched her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt/challenge thing from a while back: Take five minutes and five minutes only to write a drabble. No re-reading or editing.


End file.
